Category: Verbatim

It’s a lot easier to be a pundit or a commentator or a blogger than to govern the state and have to make tough decisions.

— Mike Huckabee, quoted by Politico, pushing back against criticisms that he granted clemency to a man accused of murdering four police officers.

Why would I want to do that? It’s been a hell of a tour. I’ve loved it. I have no aspirations for further office.

— Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with Politico, insisting he will not run for president in 2012.

The next few weeks will tell us a lot about whether senators are more committed to solving problems or creating them.

— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), opening debate in the Senate on health care reform.

He’s a typical man. I don’t care if he’s 90 years old, he thought that she is so pretty. He loves a pretty woman.

— Gigi Graham, quoted by Christianity Today, on her father Billy’s meeting with Sarah Palin.

And so the rewriting of history continues ….

We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.

— Bush administration Press Secretary Dana Perino, in an interview on Fox News, blithely ignoring the fact that George W. Bush was president of the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

I grew up a Democrat in a Democrat family. My husband and I both worked on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign. The first time I ever came to Washington was to dance at Walter Mondale’s inaugural ball. It was a thrill for my husband and me, and we were both happy to work on behalf of Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter. We really believed in them when we were in college. So in some ways I don’t understand why the Democratic Party would be opposed to me, because I stand for the same values that my parents stood for when we were Democrats.

— Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), expressing confusion about why she’s the target of so many Democratic attacks.

Culture is politics. [Sarah] Palin is at the red-hot center of age-old American resentments that have boiled up both from the ascent of our first black president and from the intractability of the Great Recession for those Americans who haven’t benefited from bailouts. As Palin thrives on the ire of the left, so she does from the disdain of Republican leaders who, with a condescension rivaling the sexism they decry in liberals, belittle her as a lightweight or instruct her to eat think-tank spinach.

The only person who can derail Palin is Palin herself. Should she not self-destruct, she will doom G.O.P. hopes of a 2012 comeback. But the rest of the country cannot rest easy. The rage out there is larger than Palin and defies partisan labeling.

— Frank Rich, New York Times columnist.

I would never have posed for Newsweek in shorts.

— Former serial beauty pageant contestant and basketball player Sarah Palin, quoted by Politico, on this week’s Newsweek cover photo.

I probably won’t, but I don’t get a chance to read things other than briefing books very often these days anyway.

— Pres. Barack Obama, when asked if he plans to read “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin

By the way, I don’t know if we call him Levi — I hear he goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now, so, if that’s the case, we don’t want to mess up this gig he’s got going … Kind of this aspiring, aspiring porn — the things that he’s doing. It’s kind of heartbreaking.

— Sarah Palin, in an interview on Oprah, about the father of her grandson.

I just look at her in disgust … It’s almost funny, that she’s like, 46 years old, and she’s battling a 19 year old, and I’m winning. And I’m telling the truth. She’s lying and losing … If you look at her face, she’s got — she’s really — you can tell her mind’s going 100 miles an hour when Oprah asked her those Levi questions … I’ve got a lot more knowledge and credibility than she gives me credit for.

— Levi Johnston, in an interview on The Insider, about Sarah Palin.