September, 2012

by John Hawkins

From the Horse’s Mouth

“If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” — Barack Obama

“The private sector is doing fine.” — Barack Obama

“I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” — Barack Obama

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” — Barack Obama

“I mean, if you think about — if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” — Barack Obama makes the case for socialized medicine in a rather odd fashion

“You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” — Barack Obama

“I am not in favor of concealed weapons. I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.” — Barack Obama

“I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer’s lobby.” — Barack Obama

“…I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” — Barack Obama

Rick Warren: “…Now, let’s deal with abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time, all of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?”

Barack Obama: “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

“…I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.” — Barack Obama

“But I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” — Barack Obama
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.” — Barack Obama

“It’s very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth- or sixth-most interesting person.” — Barack Obama

“The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president – with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln.” — Barack Obama

“I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.” — Barack Obama

“No, no. I have been practicing…I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something.” — Barack Obama

“I won.” — Barack Obama to Republicans in Congress who were trying to discuss the stimulus plan with him

“Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower….” — Barack Obama

“And if that child should ever get the chance to travel the world and someone should ask her where is she from, we believe that she should always be able to hold her head high with pride in her voice when she answers, ‘I am an American.’ That is the course we seek. That is the change we are calling for.” — Barack Obama

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a (flag) pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest…” — Barack Obama

“I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. …” — Barack Obama

“Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn’t been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn’t make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate’s sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you’d met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. …You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection.” — Barack Obama

“…I inhaled frequently. That was the point.” — Barack Obama

“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.” — Barack Obama

“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.” — Barack Obama

As Sen. Hillary Clinton was preparing to campaign here today, Sen. Barack Obama was meeting with voters at a diner and apparently pretty hungry.

“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” he said, when asked a foreign policy question by a reporter at the Glider Diner. — Barack Obama

“When I meet with world leaders, what’s striking — whether it’s in Europe or here in Asia…” — Barack Obama, mistakenly referring to Hawaii as Asia while holding a press conference outside Honolulu, Nov. 16, 2011

“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” — Barack Obama, on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people

“Making products we sell around the world, stamped with three proud words, ‘Made in the USA!’” — Barack Obama

“I don’t believe it is possible to transcend race in this country. Race is a factor in this society. The legacy of Jim Crow and slavery has not gone away. It is not an accident that African-Americans experience high crime rates, are poor, and have less wealth. It is a direct result of our racial history.” — Barack Obama
“Let’s not play games. I was suggesting – you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith.” — Barack Obama

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling conventions. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.

But this strategy alone couldn’t provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerant. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.” — Barack Obama

“It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: (White) People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.” — Barack Obama

“That’s just how white folks will do you. It wasn’t merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn’t know that they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn.” — Barack Obama

“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!” — Barack Obama quotes Rev. Wright

“Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.” — Barack Obama

“I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” — Barack Obama

“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person…” — Barack Obama

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.” — Barack Obama

“My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” — Barack Obama

“The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. . . . What I think we know – separate and apart from this incident – is that there is a long history in their country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact.” – President Obama on Gates’ arrest.

Joe Biden

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” — Joe Biden

“This is a big f*cking deal.” — Joe Biden on Obamacare

“Gimme a f*&$#ing break.” — Joe Biden at Union Station

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.” — Joe Biden

“The more people learn about them (Obama and Hillary) and how they handle the pressure, the more their support will evaporate.” — Joe Biden

“We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out — equally a mistake.” — Joe Biden

ANNOUNCER: What does Barack Obama’s running mate say about Barack Obama?

ABC’S GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You were asked, “Is he ready?” You said, “I think he can be ready but right now, I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.”

JOE BIDEN: I think that I stand by the statement.

ANNOUNCER: And what does he say about John McCain?

BIDEN: I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off. — Biden Quoted In McCain Ad

“Chuck, Stand Up, Chuck. Let Them See You. Oh, God Love You, What Am I Talking About?” — Joe Biden to a man in a wheelchair

“As you probably know, some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, DC as the “capital of the free world. But it seems to me that this great city (Brussels), which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title.” — Joe Biden
As Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S. — Joe Biden

“You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent.” — Joe Biden

“And don’t any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican. I’m not supposed to say, this isn’t political. …don’t come to me if you do! You’re on your own, Jack!” — Joe Biden
Obama’s Administration

“When I became the NASA administrator – or before I became the NASA administrator – (Obama) charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.” — Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” — Attorney General Eric Holder

“The American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act. The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.” — Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the public’s lack of concern over greenhouse gasses

“And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.” — DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano comment about a terrorist attack stopped by passengers

“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.” — Energy Secretary Steven Chu on banning incandescent lightbulbs

“Somewhat more broadly, I will suggest that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law.” — Cass Sunstein

“There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.” — Hillary Clinton

“Even if Congress were to enact this budget we would still be left with—in the outer decades as millions of Americans retire—what are still unsustainable commitments in Medicare and Medicaid…With the president’s plan, even if Congress were to enact it, and even if Congress were to hold to it, we would still be left with a very large interest burden and unsustainable obligations over time.” — Timothy Geithner

“I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.” — Hillary Clinton

Peter Barnes “Is there a risk that the United States could lose its AAA credit rating? Yes or no?”

Tim Geithner’s response: “No risk of that.” — Tim Geithner’s response

“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption–especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.” — John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” — Steven Chu

Michelle Obama

“(America is) just downright mean.” — Michelle Obama

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.” — Michelle Obama

“What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first.” — Michelle Obama

“It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?” — Michelle Obama

“…(T)he realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.” — Michelle Obama

“I wake up every morning wondering how on earth I am going to pull off that next minor miracle to get through the day. I know that everybody in this room is going through this. That is the dilemma women face today. Every woman that I know, regardless of race, education, income, background, political affiliation, is struggling to keep her head above water.” — Michelle Obama

“Asked how she feels about Bill Clinton’s use of the phrase ‘fairytale’ to describe her husband’s characterization of his position on the Iraq war, (Michelle Obama) first responded: ‘No.’

But, after a few seconds of contemplation, and gesturing with her fingernails, she told the reporter: ‘I want to rip his eyes out!’

Noticing an aide giving her a nervous look, she added: ‘Kidding! See, this is what gets me into trouble.’” — WorldNetDaily
“Who’s got time to go to the fruit stand? Who can afford it, first of all?” — Michelle Obama

“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.” — Michelle Obama

“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.” — Michelle Obama

Barack’s Former Spiritual Mentor & Confidant

“What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice. He’s much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I’m not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that’s involved in national politics.” — Barack Obama

“We started the AIDS virus. …We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty.” — Jeremiah Wright

“The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.” — Jeremiah Wright

“Them Jews aren’t going to let (Obama) talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office. …They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is.” — Jeremiah Wright

“Just before Obama’s nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: ‘When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli’ to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, ‘a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.’

According to Wright, Obama then told him, ‘You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.’ But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement.” — Ronald Kessler, Newsmax

“Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body.” — Jeremiah Wright

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” — Jeremiah Wright

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” — Jeremiah Wright

“…White folks’ greed runs a world in need…” — Jeremiah Wright

“White folk done took this country. You’re in their home, and they’re gonna let you know it….You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk and if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble.” —
Jeremiah Wright
“America is still the No. 1 killer in the world.” — Jeremiah Wright

“(The United States) is the same as al-Qaeda, under a different color flag, calling on the name a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem!” — Jeremiah Wright

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God d*mn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God d*mn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God d*mn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” — Jeremiah Wright
This is updated from Barack Obama In Quotes Version 3.0, which was originally done in October of 2008.