Charlie Gasparino tells us why Daley left and what it means: a hard left turn.
The announcement that Bill Daley will step down as President Obama’s chief of staff is further proof that as the 2012 election approaches, Obama is embracing his inner leftist on anything touching the economy. The administration has moved so far left that even one of the country’s most prominent Democrats can’t fit in.
A disappointed Matt Damon: “I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, `Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician.’ You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”
President Obama: “The way I think about it is, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track.”
President Obama: “Instead of working to boost our economy, they’re out there spending time trying to defund Planned Parenthood and prevent millions of women from getting basic health care that they desperately need – pap smears and breast exams.”
President Obama on retaining the Hispanic vote: “I don’t think it requires us to go negative in the sense of us running a bunch of ads that are false, or character assassinations. We may just run clips of the Republican debates verbatim. We won’t even comment on them, we’ll just run those in a loop on Univision and Telemundo, and people can make up their own minds,”
President Barack Obama of the GOP: “You got their plan, which is let’s have dirtier air, dirtier water, (and) less people with health insurance,”
Sen. John Kerry, D-mass.: “I believe this is, without question, the Tea Party downgrade. This is the Tea Party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered even the will of many Republicans in the United States Senate who were prepared to do a bigger deal.”
President Obama told a crowd at a battery plant in Holland, Michigan, that Republicans must “find a way to put country ahead of party.” Then he flew off to do 2 fundraisers.
Reporter Justin Farmer: “I took in the man himself, this man, President Barack Obama. Regardless of one’s political leanings, there’s no doubt this is a gifted and complex man. Think about what he ponders in any given day?”
Justin Farmer: “I admit as he was answering one of my questions, I did look carefully at his face. (Our chairs were oddly placed almost uncomfortably close.) I pondered the responsibility, the challenges this one man bears.”
Liberals: President-elect Obama said, in December 2008, after meeting with governors: “I think we can get a lot of work done fast. All of them have projects that are shovel …
