MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “The national media, which leans a little to the left, I could argue, could smash him [Mitt Romney].”
MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: “But if anyone’s dirty, it’s Newt Gingrich — a man whose personal morality has been drawn from the sewer, a man who pontificates about his Catholic faith and morality but repeatedly commits adultery.”
President Barack Obama: “If you love me, you’ve got to help me pass this bill.”
Valerie Jarrett, White House senior adviser, to Rachel Maddow on President Obama‘s jobs plan: “The Congress should pass this plan and they should do it right this minute…there’s no reason why we can’t move forward right this minute.”
Valerie Jarrett, one minute later, to Maddow: “The president is going to draft the legislation, make the job a little easier for Congress and the Senate, and send it up there next week.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) statement: “The current, so-called `debt crisis’ has been completely manufactured by House Republicans attempting to advance an extremist agenda. This should be a simple vote to allow the US Treasury to fund all of the programs and obligations of the entire federal government that are already in the law.”
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi statement: “It is clear we must enter an era of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice.”
President Barack Obama, helping to explain the devastating unemployment numbers: “There’s some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers…You see it when you go to a bank and … you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate”
President Obama: “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”
News reporter Chris Matthews on the Japan disaster: “Was this sort of a good opportunity for the President to remind everybody that he grew up in the United States and Hawaii? That’s the first thing that I thought of.”
Senate leader Harry Reid on the Republicans budget which cuts too much from the budget: “The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1, eliminates National Public Broadcasting. It eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts. These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”
