Say What? January 31, 2011 Edition [Reader Post]

Liberals:

President Obama: “This isn’t about me. We weren’t sent here to wage perpetual political campaigns against each other. We were sent here to serve the American people. And they deserve better than gridlock and games”

President Barack Obama on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: “And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Obama on his meeting with Jan Brewer: “Last time we met, she wasn’t fully satisfied.”  Okay, perhaps that quote was taken is slightly out of context.

President Obama: “We’re going to have a robust debate about whose vision is more promising [for] moving this country forward.”  Tax the rich versus free enterprise.

After being asked how much he wanted to have a second term, Obama answered: “Badly.  Because I think the country needs it.  Whoever wins the Republican primary is going to be a standard bearer for a vision of the country that I don’t think reflects who we are.  I’m going to fight as hard as I can with every fiber of my being to make sure that we continue on a path that I think will restore the American dream.”

On his dozens of speeches given in battleground states, Obama stated: “Some people may interpret that as campaigning. I consider that to be important to my leadership in governing this country.”

Obama, on being called the food stamp president by Newt Gingrich: “First of all, I don’t put people on food stamps.  People become eligible for food stamps. Second of all, the initial expansion of food-stamp eligibility happened under my Republican predecessor, not under me. No. 3, when you have a disastrous economic crash that results in 8 million people losing their jobs, more people are going to need more support from government.”  Yep, it’s Bush’s fault again.  The Obama administration is encouraging the use of food stamps.

Joe Biden: “It’s hard to respond to Newt with those kind of ridiculous statements.  Do they actually think that President Barack Obama wants to put everybody on food stamps? I don’t know what they mean by it quite frankly. There must be some base they’re trying to appeal to. I just don’t know.”

Our president, who has been careful not to say anything this time around about greedy doctors who cut off people’s feet in order to pad their salaries, explained success in the economy: “We do not begrudge wealth in this country. I want everybody here to do well. We aspire to financial success, but we also understand that we’re not successful just by ourselves.  We’re successful because somebody started the University of Michigan. We’re successful because somebody made an investment in all the federal research labs that created the internet. We’re successful because we have an outstanding military that costs money. We’re successful because somebody built roads and bridges. And laid broadband lines and these things didn’t just happen on their own. And if we all understand that we’ve got to pay for this stuff.”  I want your money.

President Obama: “I hear folks running around calling this class warfare, this is not class warfare—let me tell you something: asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary, that’s just common sense.”

President Obama to an auditorium of students: “You’re the ones who need help.  A quarter of all millionaire [earners] pay lower taxes than millions of middle-class households. [audience boos] Is that fair? . does it make sense to you? . do we want to invest in things like. student loans and grants?”  Obama leaves out two pertinent facts: he could have raised these taxes when he had a supermajority in the Senate (although it is likely that members of his own party would not go along with it).  And, the more the investment class is taxed, the fewer business investments there are, which means, the fewer jobs that will await these young people when they graduate.

Obama advisor David Plouffe: “Well, listen, we’re happy to have this [be] a referendum on what we’ve done.”

Vice President Joe Biden, in search of a coherent thought: “”We know what they’re going to say, the opposition. They’re going to say – I found Mitch Daniels, who I don’t know, but seems like a reasonable guy – Daniels talked about trickle down government. I started thinking about that and how they keep talking about us, how we’re big government, trickle down government and they’re free enterprise. I started thinking. Remember Nancy? I don’t know whether it was you or us or who came up with the idea. We said, you know we’re paying banks 60 billion dollars next for the 10 years to process loans to send kids to college. All our friends thought that’s just free enterprise. It was taxpayer’s money.  We came along and said why not use taxpayers’ money more directly. Was it, George? George Miller, if you are here, you did a hell of a deal. Let’s go give it directly. What was that? That’s trickle down government, man. I am serious!”  I think that what he is saying is, “Trickle down government in the right hands is good;” and that it is a good thing to give a lot of money to banks and direct them as to how to use it.  I think.

Joe Biden, who had a lot to say this week, explains the difference  between Republicans and Democrats: “The difference between us and them is we are strongly supportive of the private sector, they’re supportive of the privileged sector.”

Joe Biden to Nancy Pelosi: “There’s not a single, solitary thing on our agenda that would have gotten done without your leadership.  Those decisions you made, the risk you took, the losses we incurred, really did save this country.”

Fund-raising email from Nancy Pelosi: “It’s hard to believe how far the Tea Party has taken us away from making the kind of progress our country so greatly deserves. Republicans have launched an all-out assault on women, the middle class and our seniors in the name of protecting billionaires and Big Oil.”

Obama ad: “There’s more work to do, but you might be surprised to hear the progress we’ve made.  Twenty-two straight months of job growth; 3.1 million jobs added. Help us spread the word.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney: “This president’s absolute faith and commitment to the free enterprise system is profound.”

Jay Carney: “[The President’s program] is by any clear-eyed definition a very common-sense, centrist agenda.”

Chicago Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky about why the Keystone Pipeline is not that important: “Twenty thousand jobs is really not that many jobs and investing in green technologies will produce that and more.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) opened the Senate after a month off “Influenced by these Tea Party voices, Republicans forced us to waste  months on routine legislation that nearly shut down our government and held hostage the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Nancy Pelosi of Newt Gingrich: “He’s not going to be president of the United States. This is – that’s not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it. It isn’t going to happen.”

Al Sharpton, of Obama singing a couple lines of an Al Green song: “Since that performance, sales for Al Green’s songs shot up 490%. That’s the best sales week for that song since they began tracking downloads nine years ago. The President sings, boosts classic songs and helps the economy. Hey Republicans, you sure you are ready to face him in the election?”

James Hansen, the director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies who first warned the world about the dangers of climate change in the 1980s: “Our children and grandchildren will judge those who have misled the public, allowing fossil fuel emissions to continue almost unfettered, as guilty of crimes against humanity and nature.  But the eventual conviction of these people in the court of public opinion will do little to ease the burdens that will have been created for today’s young people and future generations.”

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), with Elmo in tow: “As we all know, this is Elmo. This guy taught us our 1,2,3s, but he also taught us tolerance and understanding.  For the past several years, he’s been doing the same thing for children in the Palestinian territories. Because of the Sesame Street in Palestine, Palestinian kids grow up with the same positive role models we did. But recently Sesame Street has been off the air. Now Palestinian kids are left watching Farfour. . . . He’s a mouse who is the main character of a Hamas TV show. Instead of tolerance and understanding, Farfour promotes violence and anti-Semitism.”

Former vice president Al Gore: “This [cancelling the Keystone pipeline project] is an important win not only for the thousands of activists who risked arrest – and for the hundreds who went to jail – but for all of us who want to try and roll back the effects of the climate crisis, not magnify them.”

Joe Biden on the housing crisis: “I’m going to make a raw political statement here. A guy like Romney is a good guy, he’s a decent honorable man, and I admire his family, but what he doesn’t understand is that we look at the foreclosure rate in the country like somebody going to bed tonight. They stare at the ceiling wondering if they’re going to be in that house a month from now, and what can we do to help? They [Republicans] look at it from a purely economic standpoint. The best thing to get the housing market back up is to let the foreclosures occur, let the bottom fall out, start to clean up. It’s sort of Darwinian, survival of the fittest out there, and they are right. It would be the quickest way to do it, but what they don’t understand is there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, who, through no fault of their own, are in that spot. I think in those circumstances, the government has a responsibility to give these people a leg up.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, says what will happen if the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate: “I think we keep going.  We find ways to encourage people to become enrolled and become insured. And the mandate’s the fastest way to do it, and it just says, basically, everybody’s got some responsibility. But there are other ways to encourage people to come in.”

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who is worth $14.5 million and lives in a $5 million house: “I realize there are some wealthy individuals – I’m not one of them, but some wealthy individuals who have a lot of stock portfolios.”

Senator Chuck Schumer: “The Republican speaker last night, Mitch Daniels, talked about Americans must talk about the state of the union as grave. So, we think we are in great shape. We are in good shape.”

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro: “The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is – and I mean this seriously – the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been.”

Bill Maher: “So here’s what happened: Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona, went to see Obama in the White House about the border and stuff a couple of years ago. And after the meeting she said it went really well, he was a great guy, very cordial. Then she wrote a book about it and said ‘asshole.’  So Obama gets off the plane in Arizona and she rushes off him, unannounced, with the letter saying ‘I want you to talk to me again, invite me to the Oval Office and .’ Obama said, you know, ‘What happened? I read your book.’  This is what everybody is talking about. Look at that (Image of Brewer’s finger in Obama’s face). Right to the President of the United States. Now, Jan Brewer says she regrets the confrontation, but these are the kind of problems that arise when we permit negroes to read.”

Bill Maher: `Who the f**k is Saul Alinsky?’

Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings: “[President Obama had] some 508 promises that he made to the American people and he has acted on all of them except three.”  He was citing liberal Politifact which lists 56 promises which Obama explicitly broke.

Rep. Donna Christensen on push for picture voter ID’s: “It is clear to me that whether racially based or not, this is a direct attempt, not only to undermine the election process, but a specific attempt to derail what surely would be and ought to be the re-election of Barack Obama.”

The new U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul: “We’re just going to support what we like to call `universal values’ – not American values, not Western values, universal values.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer: “No president with whom I’ve served over those last 30 years has spent as much time working with Republicans and Democrats in the room, exchanging ideas, evidencing a willingness to compromise as President Obama has.”

Super PAC Obama ad in Florida: “Mitt Romney has no shame. He shows one face to the Hispanic community and another completely different one to everyone else.”

Shaun Casey, the religious affairs adviser to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008: “I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying.”

It’s all about racism:

Melissa ___ commentator on MSNBC about jan Brewer wagging her finger in Obama’s face: “The fact is when I see that still, I cannot help but be reminded of that photograph that was captured in 1957 in Little Rock Arkansas of a young woman Hazel screaming at a young Elizabeth Eckford trying to get into Little Rock High School.”

These are equivalent?
Rev. Jesse Jackson: “Gov. Janice K. Brewer, the finger person. Gov. Janice K. Brewer, who gave President Obama the finger, governor of Arizona.”

Former congressman Alan Grayson:  “I think there’s a sort of race between [Newt’s] egomania and his racism.  And I think he’s running the most overtly racist campaign that I’ve seen in this country since George Wallace. You’re talking about presidential campaigns. So I think that, what he tries to do is to do these dog-whistle things to people he thinks he can connect with to make up for his shortcomings frankly as a human being.”

Ron Reagan Jr.: “Barack Obama has some stuff cutting against him here….there’s the incandescent hatred for him on the right.  There are people over there who’d vote for Himmler over Obama.”

The Compliant Obama Press Corps:

CNN‘s Soledad O’Brien: “President Obama has never said that he was influenced by Alinsky.”  Note the careful phrasing.

Obama teaching Alinsky political theory
Salon‘s Joan Walsh: “Newt is the face of the politics of resentment and racism and angry white male rage.”

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “[Newt Gingrich] barely conceals a nasty, virulent racism and points it at both the president and also at those who are picking up food stamps who need them.”

MSNBC’s Bill Burton: “Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have a chance in this Republican primary right now—
MSNBC commentator: “—I think he’d be a Democrat probably”

Martin Bashir (on another day): “Newt has decided to use code words, which barely conceal a tone of racial decisiveness and contempt for the poor. The editorial goes on. Mr. Gingrich has reinvented the political landscape of his youth. A sun belt where politicians communicate in the venerable code words of Barry Goldwater and George Wallace. The code words, of course, originally had much to do with race.  But this race-based anger charged politics mutated in Mr. Gingrich into a more generalized moral authoritarianism. Mr. Gingrich wants to be obeyed. Indeed he does. When Gingrich refers to Mr. Obama as the greatest food stamps President in modern history, it doesn’t matter that it’s not true. It allows him to use those code words that he so loves.”

Liberals from the past:

Candidate Obama: “I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: “[high gas prices were the result of] the Bush Administration’s failure to enact a comprehensive energy strategy.”

Liberal civility:

California Rep. Henry Waxman, of Republicans who want to attach a presidential approval for the Keystone XL Pipeline to another increase in the payroll tax cut: “They want to use legislation as a way to act like terrorists. They hold things as hostage.  We almost couldn’t fund the government because Republicans wanted to hold that idea hostage, we almost couldn’t pay our debts because the Republicans wanted to hold that legislation hostage to their extreme agenda, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they scuttled this conference by trying to hold us hostage.”

Stephanie Miller, liberal radio host: “It’s like she was almost posing for that picture on the tarmac—her with her finger up in the president’s face, it’s like, you know—Lyndon Johnson would have broken that off and shoved it up…”

chaplinlives tweet: “Next time Jan Brewer sticks her finger in President’s face, the Secret Service should break it & drop her.”

DCCC fund rasing email: “Have you heard the garbage Republicans have been spewing about President Obama’s State of the Union speech?”

Former Representative Alan Grayson: “Newt is the most hateful person in American politics today, and he’s well on his way to becoming the most hated. His disapproval ratings are now at 60% nation wide which is very close to his name recognition. The more people know him, the more are going to hate him. He is the new Nixon and none of this moneys going to make any difference in that regard, particularly with the Cuban community because only four years ago, Newt Gingrich said Spanish is the language of the ghetto.”

Crazy Muslims:

A spokesman for al-Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq who identified himself as Abu Mohammed al-Adnani: “America has been defeated in Iraq.  They pulled out because its economic and human losses were unbearable.  America’s bankruptcy and collapse is imminent. This is the real reason behind the withdrawal.”

Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar: “In my mind Islam is the most misunderstood and misrepresented religion in the world. For example, Islam is the one religion that reinforces respect for women but we, the entire world must take responsibility because we have let Islam to be misrepresented.”   18,360 Islamic attacks by Muslims since 9/11.  Just this past week, 32 people were killed in Iraq when a suicide car bomber plows into a Shiite funeral procession.

CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper concerning statements that Rick Santorum has made: “The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation’s highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality.”

Senior Hamas official Mahmud Zaar: “We are fighting for our dignity and rights. Jihad is our path, our life, our pride and we will not renounce it no matter the sacrifices.”

Allah Bachaya after turning himself in for killing his sister with an ax in the name of honour: “I have killed her because she brought disgrace to the family’s name.  She had become a nuisance. I feel no remorse over my actions. I am backed by the family. They were in favour of my decision to kill her.”

Liberals making sense:

President Obama: “I laid out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last, that has a firm foundation.  Where we’re making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere.  That’s the economy we want.”

President Obama: “This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper and full of new jobs.”  Just not oil from Canada.

Rep. Emanueal Cleaver, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus : “The point was that if we had anybody else in the White House [other than Obama], with this level of unemployment, that you know, you would see a lot more African Americans, African American organizations and retro organizations speaking out against it. But because he is revered, you know, he gets I guess the benefit of, you know, understanding that the situation was terrible when he came in. So, we’re not doing that.”

Evan Thomas, Politico: “Yeah, I agree with all of it. It was a disheartening speech. It was a pathetic speech, really. I mean, here he’s got, the President of the United States needs a mandate for rebuilding the infrastructure, for getting control of the deficit, for tax reform. So what does he talk about? Raising taxes on millionaires, which I guess you have to do, but it is a tiny problem compared to all the others. And so he is running on sort of cheap pandering. And I’m sure the speech was well written, and it was sort of vaguely moving at the end when he talked about the military, but it was overall a pathetic speech.”  Did someone put truth serum in his coffee?

Rep. Jim Himes tweet when Representative Keith Ellison took to the floor of Congress with Elmo: “Haven’t seen that before.”

ABC newsman Jake Tapper to George Stephanopoulos: “What’s interesting, George, is the conundrum in which President Obama finds himself. He really can’t run on so many of his major legislative accomplishments – regardless of the merits of health care reform, financial reform, the stimulus – they’re not popular.”

Crosstalk:

Wolf Blitzer: “Congressman Paul. You said the U.S. should talk to everyone. Imagine you’re in the Oval Office, you speak to Raul Castro on the phone. What would you say to him?”

Ron Paul: “Well … I’d ask him what he called about, you know?”
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Chris Matthews: In other words, there is no manmade influence on climate change? Is that your belief, Ron Christie? I didn’t know that. Are you out there with the full-mooners on this one?

Ron Christie, Republican strategist: Let me enlighten you on this one, Chris. I think global climate change is the biggest fraud that’s been perpetrated in this country. The scientific evidence isn’t there. This is something that Al Gore and his cronies have made millions of dollars of perpetuating a myth. That’s what I think.

Matthews: How are you standing on evolution these days?

Christie: I’m feeling pretty good in evolution.

Matthews: Do you believe in it?

Christie: God it our creator and I think that we all fall from the good Lord.

Matthews: So you don’t believe in evolution?

Christie: I believe that God is our Creator and we all from the good Lord.

Matthews: What is with the troglodyte? The Luddites? What is the party that used to believe in things?

Christie: Troglodytes? It’s true. One of the things you’re missing here is faith. You’re missing faith in this country.

Matthews: Excuse me, I don’t want to just plum the depths the position the party is taking that is so far right these days. Let’s go back to life on this planet here.

Audio here.
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CNSNews.com: “Do you think he [Obama] will be able to make the case this year that Americans are better off now than they were before he became president?”

Democrat Senator Bob Casey: “I think the main focus the president brought to this speech was a focus on jobs and making sure that we do things like extending the payroll tax cut for the rest of the year, making sure unemployment insurance is in place for the rest of the year.  If we take those steps and do it in a bipartisan way, making sure that Democrats and Republicans are working together, I think we’re going to have not only a better year, but more importantly a better economy and more job creation. That’s the key. And bringing people together, I think that’s part of the focus.”  I guess he did not hear the question?

Conservatives:

Representative Allen West: “This is a battlefield that we must stand upon. And we need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend, chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table.  Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else.  You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

Senator Marco Rubio on the President’s SOTU address: “What you didn’t hear last night from the President – he didn’t talk about the successes of this administration enough. Because there [aren’t] any. The fact of the matter is – you know, usually at this point in a Presidential career, you’re talking about some of your accomplishments and how your ideas and plans have worked. He touched on it briefly but he really didn’t delve into it, because after three years, he has very little he can point to and, in fact, all these factors we’re talking about are worse than they were three years ago.”

Marco Rubio of Obama: “The guy that’s there now doesn’t know what he is doing.” [quoted from memory]

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum: “I signed a letter, along with 24 other senators, that said, we either do something now, stop the filibuster of this bill. Harry Reid, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, all of whom were in the Senate at the time. They were filibustering this bill to allow reform of Fannie and Freddie. And we said, if this doesn’t happen, if we don’t constrain these two behemoths from continuing to underwrite this subprime mortgage problem, then we’re going to have a collapse.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner of finding common ground with President Obama: “We have a good relationship; We just come from two different planets.  We speak a different language. It was like negotiating with someone who has never negotiated with anyone before.”

Newt Gingrich: “But the objective fact is [Obama] believes in a very radical vision of America’s future that is fundamentally different from probably 80 percent of this country. And nobody in the elite media has ever wanted to dig into it, ever wanted-why would he veto the Keystone pipeline? Why would he kill jobs in America? Why would he have a National Labor Relations Board attack Boeing? Because it fits the model of Alinsky radicalism.”

Newt Gingrich: “It’s unfortunate that liberal leaders, whatever their ethnic background, can’t have an honest open debate about policies that fail. The fact is far more whites than blacks are on food stamps, and liberals shouldn’t get away with hiding the consequence of their bad policies by yelling racism.”

Sarah Palin: “Look at Newt Gingrich, what’s going on with him via the establishment’s attacks.  They’re trying to crucify this man and rewrite history and rewrite what it is that he has stood for all these years.”

Ron Paul, when asked if Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich should return money made from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: “That subject really doesn’t interest me a whole lot.”

Rick Santorum of Romney and Gingrich: “…both of them bought into the global warming hoax. cap-and-trade, top-down control of our energy and manufacturing policy”

Rick Santorum: “…going up against Barack Obama, who you are going to claim, well, top-down government-run medicine on the federal level doesn’t work and we should repeal it. And he’s going to say, ‘wait a minute, Governor. You just said that top-down government-run medicine in Massachusetts works well.’  Folks, we can’t give this issue away in this election. It is about fundamental freedom.“

Rep. Allen West: “Under President Obama’s leadership, there’s been a 41 percent increase in food stamp recipients in the United States of America.  If there are people such as Rep. Clyburn that don’t want to face up to the truth then that’s on them and I think it’s absolutely reprehensible that they feel that the only thing they can fall back on is try to create some type of racial division which we know that the Democrats are already trying to create some type of class warfare division as well.”

FoxNews commentator Greg Gutfeld: “For years we’ve been told that high self-esteem leads to high achievement and that giving everyone a trophy creates smarter, happier kids with lots of stupid trophies.  Well, according to the Washington Post, growing research has found that giving children so much praise, and so many trophies, makes them shy away from real challenges because they are afraid of failure. Psychologist Carol Dweck said, ‘We used to think we could hand children self-esteem on a platter. That has backfired.’ ”

Greg Gutfeld: “[The Obama administration] favored defecation over job creation.”  [quoted from memory; this is a reference to the 99% marches where one demonstrator defecated on a police car].

Greg Gutfeld: “Green energy is the unicorn of the Democrats.”

Donald Trump: “The real Obama is a much different person than most people think.” [quoted from memory]

Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas on why he is not going to a White House reception celebrating their Stanley Cup championship: “I exercised my right as a Free Citizen. . This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country…I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.  This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.  Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.”
American Elephant: “Obama didn’t “inherit” SQUAT except from himself and the Democrat controlled congress.”

Rush Limbaugh: “It would be interesting to see if the medical marijuana gang in this country would support an oral spray of marijuana that doesn’t give you a high, does not increase your appetite, but effectively deals with a medical problem.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Obama wants people paying the fine. He wants ’em not having insurance because while they’re doing that, Obamacare is going to push private sector health insurance out of business. And by the time it’s all said and done, five years or more, the only place you’re gonna be able to go to get health insurance is the government and one of their numerous exchanges.”

Rush Limbaugh: “You could run the government for 18 days on the combined income of the 8,274 people who make incomes over $10 million a year, which means the answer to our problem is not raising their taxes, folks.”

Rush Limbaugh: “If the government has the power to regulate your business, you get in bed with them to limit the damage and maybe on the upside get regulations in your favor.”

Rush Limbaugh: “If this speech last night had a theme, it’s ‘Government is the center of the universe! Government is everything. Your life should be government. When you get up in the morning, the first thing you do is consider, think about, and look to your government.'”

Rush Limbaugh: “If you ever become filthy rich or moderately rich, then publicly go liberal! That’s how you can keep everybody away from your money and that’s the only thing they’re doing.”

Rush Limbaugh: “So Obama spends a whole speech talking about, ‘No more bailouts. We’re not gonna do that! No handouts, no cop-outs,’ and then he gives as his greatest example of American prosperity a company he bailed out! Who wrote this? This speech was an embarrassment.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Newt comes off as smart, and I can’t TELL YOU how much that matters to people on our side. They’re sick and tired of people being nominated who can’t put two sentences together or sound like Cowboy Billy Bob at the time they’re doing it. They’re just fed up with it.”

Rush Limbaugh: “Don’t forget who we’re running against. We are not running against The Messiah. Not running against God, just somebody who thinks he is.”

Rush Limbaugh: “I’m not supporting anybody. I am supporting conservatism. I’m supporting the truth about Barack Obama coming out.”

Rush Limbaugh: “People ask me, ‘What do you mean, who is this Republican establishment?’ Two things. They don’t like conservatives and they’re not really all that concerned about spending. They want to be in charge of it. That’s who they are.”

Republican Infighting:

Rick Santorum: “He [Romney] has the nerve to feign outrage over Obamacare, even while he touts Romneycare – a carbon copy of Obamacare – as a virtuous success, supported by 90% of Massachusetts residents.  Santorum did his homework, and called him out on the hypocrisy.  Romney was never able to answer why the same market intervention and distortions – mandates, subsidies, and Medicaid – which form the bedrock of Obamacare , supposedly worked so well in Massachusetts.  The reason he couldn’t answer the question is because Romneycare was a complete failure.  It is the canary in the coal mine for Obamacare.”

New Jersey governor Chris Christie: “Newt Gingrich has embarrassed the party over time. Whether he’ll do it again in the future I don’t know, but Gov. Romney never has.  I mean he was run out of the speakership by his own party, he was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. This is a guy that has had a very difficult political career at times, and has been an embarrassment to the party.” Except that this is not really true.

Columnist Peggy Noonan: ‘[Gingrich is an] angry little attack muffin.”

Mitt Romney on Newt Gingrich: “I think as you look at the speaker’s record over time, it’s been highly erratic.  You know, he voted in favor of establishing the Department of Education, and yet he gets in a debate and says we should get rid of the Department of Education and send all the education issues back to the states. He’s opposed vehemently to the Massachusetts health care system, and yet just a couple years ago wrote about what a superb system it was.  He’s gone from pillar to post almost like a pinball machine, from item to item in a way which is highly erratic.  It does not suggest a stable, thoughtful course, which is normally associated with leadership.”

Former Senator and GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole: “I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich, but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late.  ‘If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state and federal offices…Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall.  He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics helped to topple Gingrich in 1998.”

Gingrich spokesman Joe DeSantis: “These establishment Republicans sure do stick together.”

From the Conservative Review Issue #213  (HTML)  (PDF)