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“The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”
— Hubert Humphrey (1911 – 1978), American vice president, Minnesota senator
“The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”
— Pablo Casals (1876 – 1973), Spanish cellist, anti-Franco advocate, and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner
There’s something in Hillary as a model for me, because Hillary, well she came in with a different kind of celebrity obviously. But there was a kind of skepticism where she had to prove herself a certain way and also prove not to be a kind of a show horse, but to be a work horse. And so I want to … put my head down and get to work when I get there.
— Senator-elect Al Franken (D-MN), quoted by Minnesota Public Radio, on lessons he can learn from Hillary Clinton.
He had a chance to affect history. You, too, have a chance to affect history.
— President Obama, quoted by the Washington Post, showing House Democrats a portrait of Abraham Lincoln before their vote on the climate-change bill.
Hey, people deserve to know what’s in this pile of shit.
— Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), quoted in The Hill, when asked why he read portions of the cap-and-trade bill on the floor Friday night after passage of a landmark climate-change bill.
Well, these issues have been bipartisan issues … But for us as Republicans, the biggest issue about this or about spending or about other policy issues is Republicans need to do what they say they’re going to do.
— Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), quoted on CBS’s Face the Nation, saying that sex scandals are not the biggest problem for the Republican party.
But do you want to be nonpartisan and get nothing? Or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health care plan? That is the choice.
— Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), quoted in the Charleston Gazette, expecting little Republican support in passing health care reform.
So if it’s a cost problem, it’s easy: Get the people in a room who have the most and the most direct impact on cost, and do the deal. Do the deal. It’s not that complicated. If it’s an access question, people don’t have access to health care, then figure out who they are, and give them access! Hello?! Am I missing something here?
— RNC Chairman Michael Steele, guest hosting Bill Bennett’s radio show, explaining the simplicity of health care reform.
They never say Colin Powell lied. They don’t say Condi lied.
— Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, quoted in Time magazine, arguing that accusations that former President Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction are unfair.
He has no credibility left.
— Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), quoted in the Las Vegas Sun in 1998, urging Bill Clinton to resign after he admitted an extramarital affair.
I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions.
— Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), admitting he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff who was married to an employee in his Senate office. Ensign has been testing the waters for a possible presidential bid in 2012.
