The 50 Best Political Quotes For 2011 (Third Annual)

50) Get the hell off the Beach in Asbury Park and get out. You’re done. It’s 4:30 PM. You’ve maximized your tan. Get off the beach. Get in you cars and get out of those areas. — Chris Christie

49) NPR is a very elitist and in this case white institution that I think is struggling with the changing demographics of American society. And it struggles with the idea that there are capable thinkers and journalist and people who don’t fit into some box. — Juan Williams on NPR

48) Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he’s lecturing us about how America’s gone “soft”? Really? — Jonah Goldberg

47) Why does the left hate free speech? Because they don’t know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged. Having submerged themselves in disciplining each other by denouncing any heretics in their midst, they find themselves overwhelmed and outnumbered in America, where there is vibrant debate about all sorts of things they don’t know how to begin to talk about. They resort to stomping their feet and shouting “shut up”… when they aren’t prissily imploring everyone to be “civil.” — Ann Althouse

46) We tolerate, even promote, many things we once regarded as evil, wrong, or immoral. And then we seek “explanations” for an act that seems beyond comprehension. Remove societal restraints on some evils and one can expect the demons to be freed to conduct other evil acts. — Cal Thomas

45) There used to be no income inequality in China because everyone was poor. This is a tradeoff you accept for growth and freedom. — Michele Caruso-Cabrera

44) I have no use for “men’s rights,” any more than I have any use for “women’s rights,” but let us ask: Who was it that decided it was a good idea to politicize love, sex and marriage? Who spent the past four decades proclaiming that “the personal is political,” so that every office flirtation and every petty domestic quarrel is a federal civil rights violation? The damned feminists, that’s who. — Robert Stacy McCain

43) Poverty in Egypt, or anywhere else, is not very difficult to explain. There are three basic causes: People are poor because they cannot produce anything highly valued by others. They can produce things highly valued by others but are hampered or prevented from doing so. Or, they volunteer to be poor. — Walter Williams

42) Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions — and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large. — Thomas Sowell

41) “Sexual harassment” is an amorphous word that can be manipulated to infer guilt onto anyone. At some point society has to say enough is enough, this is overkill. Most men are friendly in the workplace and when their friendliness rises to the level of flirting it is all too frequently welcomed and encouraged. The rare incidents where a clueless man does not realize his flirting is not welcome should not be punished by destroying his career. The punishment is overkill and does not fit the behavior. Feminists want to have it both ways which is impossible. They have made the workplace politically correct, imposing laws against sexual harassment, while at the same time permitting flirting in the workplace to continue, letting office romances flourish. — Rachel Alexander

40) If you’ve ever known anyone with a serious addiction, the easiest thing for friends and family to do is pretend it’s not a big deal. Who wants to have a confrontation? Far easier to let things slide and have a good time. “Let’s have a nice Thanksgiving without any arguments, OK?”

The tea party is like the cousin who’s been through AA and refuses to pretend anymore. As a result, he spoils everyone’s good time. For the enablers, and others in denial, he’s the guy ruining everything, not the drunk.

Uncle Sam is the drunk and the tea partiers are the annoyingly sober — and a bit self-righteous — cousin. Measured by spending, and adjusted for inflation, the federal government has increased by more than 50 percent in 10 years. Some have enabled the drunken spending, others continue to deny it’s even a problem.

The tea party is sounding the wake-up call. If America didn’t have a problem, then there really would be good cause to be furious with the forces of sobriety. Nobody likes a party-pooper, especially the people hooked on partying. — Jonah Goldberg

39) Alternatively, suppose Qaddafi winds up hanging from a lamppost in his favorite party dress. If you’re a Third World dictator, what lessons would you draw? Qaddafi was the thug who came in from the cold, the one who (in the wake of Saddam’s fall) renounced his nuclear program and was supposedly rehabilitated in the chancelleries of the West. He was a strong partner in the war on terrorism, according to U.S. diplomats. And what did Washington do? They overthrew him anyway. — Mark Steyn

38) [The Tea Party] has to be the first “Totalitarian” movement in the history of mankind that, if it gets everything it wants…will leave you the hell alone. — Ed Driscoll

37) (He) doesn’t go into why Obama managed to get to the top of politics without being all that good at it. The answer is distressingly obvious: Obama’s the biggest affirmative action baby in history. When other pols are trying, failing, learning, while climbing up the middle rungs of the ladder, he got a pass. — Mickey Kaus

36) The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians. — Thomas Sowell

35) If the IMF is correct (a big if), China will be the planet’s No.1 economy by 2016. That means whoever’s elected in November next year will be the last president of the United States to preside over the world’s dominant economic power. — Mark Steyn

34) (Obama) keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest, their holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government and there’s no need soft peddling it, it’s the truth. It is the truth. And that’s true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I’m telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs. — Steve Wynn

33) It’s no coincidence that trust in government is at an all-time low now that the size of government is at an all-time high. – Paul Ryan

32) We don’t like Meghan McCain because she is a multi-millionaire and gets writing jobs for which she is utterly unqualified for, not because of her breast size or her butt, neither of which concerns us at all. When you make her “a victim of the Internet” because she posts pictures of her big boobs, which for most women are considered an asset, then you let her off the hook for being an ultra-rich Republican who is taking writing jobs away from talented non-rich people. Even clicking the NYT link is probably forwarding her “writing career,” which exists solely because her dad is a failed presidential candidate from four years ago. — Wonkette JR.

31) I give the president credit for at least one thing. He’s proven that someone can deserve a Nobel prize less than Al Gore. — Tim Pawlenty

30) Like so many liberal icons, Marx seldom bathed and left his wife and children in poverty. As Schlafly says, no wonder liberal women think men are pigs: Their men are pigs. —
Ann Coulter

29) Future U.S. political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me, may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost. — Robert Gates

28) If we were real domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us, wouldn’t he? — Sarah Palin

27) In his early activist days, Barack Obama the community organizer sued banks to ease their lending practices. Now his administration is suing banks for issuing risky mortgages. — Jim Hoft

26) Well, “The Washington post” three weeks ago had this investigation and they said that President Obama has now raised more money from Wall Street and the banks for this election cycle than all — than all eight Republicans combined. I don’t want to say that, because if that’s the truth, that Wall Street already has their man and his name is Barack Obama, then we’ve got a much bigger problem. — Michael Moore

25) It’s the usual Socialist fiscal math of 1 + 1 = You’re paying, so who cares. — Rachel Marsden

24) We are going to have the candidate of food stamps, the finest food-stamp president in the American history, in Barack Obama, and we are going to have a candidate of paychecks. — Newt Gingrich

23) Question: How much do you have to invest in the future before you’ve spent it and no longer have one? — Mark Steyn

22) All of which raises another question: If Obamacare is so great, why do so many people want to get out from under it? — Michael Barone

21) My name’s Ronnie Bryant, and I’m a mine operator…. I’ve been issued a [state] permit in the recent past for [waste water] discharge, and after standing in this room today listening to the comments being made by the people…. [pause] Nearly every day without fail – I have a different perspective – men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just … you know … what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I don’t know. I mean, I see these guys – I see them with tears in their eyes – looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you. — Ronnie Bryant

20) Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible. — Sarah Palin

19) If the tea party is so racist, how come when they have straw polls the black guy keeps winning? — Herman Cain

18) My next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this administration. — Gary Johnson

17) (The mainstream media) are so vested in our first black president not being a failure that it’s going to be amazing to watch the lengths they go to to protect him. They, I believe, will spout this racist line if some of their colleagues up here aren’t doing it aggressively enough. There is going to be a real desperation. — Rep. Joe Walsh (R.-Ill.)

16) Let’s pass a bill to cover the moon with yogurt that will cost $5 trillion today. And then let’s pass a bill the next day to cancel that bill. We could save $5 trillion. — Paul Ryan

15) Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored. — Thomas Sowell

14) Every time some lib-bro slags on Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin for being ugly or a c*nt or whatever, I am fully aware that he’s only not doing so to me now not because he believes I’m equal but because he thinks I agree — which I don’t. — Megan Carpentier, Executive editor of Raw Story

13) With a few exceptions, foremost among them the New York Post, the coverage of OWS protests compared to the coverage of tea-party protests is the worst media double standard in recent history. Nothing compares, because nothing else involves this much distortion on both ends of the coverage. It’s not just that most press outlets (like the protesters themselves) look the other way at depravity happening inside Obamaville, it’s that for years they treated the tea-party movement as some sort of feral mob that was forever on the brink of rampaging through the streets – like, say, Occupy Oakland just did. If you missed it when I posted it last week, go watch the ad the DNC ran in August 2009 when tea partiers first started showing up to town halls on ObamaCare. That set the tone. We began the year with tea-party pols being smeared as killers over a shooting they had nothing to do with and we end it with actual rapes being shrugged off by the press because they’re bad PR for a movement they support. Disgrace. — Allahpundit

12) If you don’t have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself. — Herman Cain

11) Personally, I’m tired of hearing the whole have-you-no-decency routine from people who have made quite clear that they possess none themselves. — Glenn Reynolds

10) I think the Democrats are going to have to be willing to give up, maybe, some short-term political gain by whipping up fears on some of these things – if it’s a reasonable Social Security proposal, a reasonable Medicare proposal. We’ve got to deal with these things. You cannot have health care devour the economy. — Bill Clinton

9) We are living in a bizarre moment in history. Our establishment—the press, the academy, all unions, most politicians, many in business who have skin in the Ponzi game—assure us that borrowing trillions of dollars to finance wasteful spending, while sticking our children with the tab plus interest, is perfectly sensible. On the other hand, believing that we should live within our means is? Crazy! — John Hinderaker

8) Those who can do. Those who can’t form a supercommittee. — Mark Steyn

7) Medicare in particular will run out of money, and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up. – Barack Obama

6) Take those God-darn hoodies down, especially in the summer. Pull your pants up and buy a belt ‘cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt. If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ‘cause you look like you’re crazy. You have damaged your own race. — Mayor Michael A. Nutter

5) With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses. — Rand Paul

4) This deal is a sugar-coated Satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see. — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver on the debt ceiling increase deal

3) All the Occupy movement starts with the premise that we owe them everything. They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything. That is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country, and why you need to reassert something by saying to them, ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath.’ — Newt Gingrich

2) The total present value of payments expected under Social Security and Medicare beyond what is expected to be collected under current tax laws is about $100 trillion. One way to put that amount of money in context is to note that it is about twice the amount of all the net private assets that exist in America today. To answer cw’s question directly, the best back-of-envelope estimate is that meeting this unfunded portion of our Social Security and Medicare commitments would require roughly an immediate 80 percent increase in federal income taxes, sustained forever. – Jim Manzi

1) For God and country – Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. Geronimo. E.K.I.A. Enemy killed in action. — The radio transmission of the SEAL who shot Bin Laden.

Also see,

The 40 Best Political Quotes Of 2010 (2nd Annual)
The 40 Best Political Quotes Of 2009

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!