This Week In Quotes: Jan 27 – Feb 2

03 Feb, 2012 by John Hawkins

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You should certainly be aided by all the constitution-writing that has gone one since the end of World War II. I would not look to the US constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary… It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the US constitution – Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights. Yes, why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world? — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The message is clear: Washington Republicans really hate Newt. And the conservative response? “Is there some way we could vote for him twice?” — Michael Graham

After the electoral fiascoes of ’06 and ’08, it wasn’t the Washington GOP that turned things around. It was the conservative base and the Tea Party. They helped elect Sen. Scott Brown here and handed the House back to the GOP. And now party bosses wonder why the base refuses to take our “Mitt medicine” and do as we’re told. Maybe it’s because we’re tired of losing. That’s the real message Republican voters are trying to send. No more losing politely with some moderate squishy candidate who cares more about what East Coast elites think of him than conservative voters do. — Michael Graham

Leading Democrats have been in the news lately sliming Americans who stick up for Israel as being “Israel Firsters.” Well, Mr. Obama has become an “Islamist Firster.” — Charles Hurt

Romney’s best hope is that all of the non-Romney candidates stay in. His strategy amounts to this: one-third of the primary vote beats two-thirds divided by three. But it doesn’t beat two-thirds divided by two. If either Gingrich or Santorum exit, the survivor could beat Romney. The problem for Romney is that the general election is a two-man race. To be “electable,” he needs all of the Republican votes plus slightly more than one-half of independent votes. So far, he has not shown he can command that much support. — Richard Miniter

“On Tuesday at the State of the Union, I laid out my vision for how we move forward,” President Obama said at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada. “I laid out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last, that has a firm foundation. Where we’re making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere.” — Barack Obama

I believe Hispanics have been used as scapegoats, to say, they’re the problem instead of being a symptom maybe of a problem with the welfare state. In Nazi Germany they had to have scapegoats to blame and they turned on the Jews. Now there’s a lot of antagonism and resentment turned just automatically on immigrants. You say, no not immigrants, it’s just illegal immigrants. I do believe in legal immigration. I want to have a provision to obey those laws. You have to understand this in the context of the economy. — Ron Paul

I’m not concerned about the very poor. There’s a safety net there, and if it needs repair I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the heart of America, the 95% of Americans who are right now struggling. — Mitt Romney

I say this by way of introducing a bit of information I received yesterday from a very well-placed source. A veteran member of the House Republican Caucus recently received a phone call from within the RNC (it was not disclosed to me who placed the call) soliciting his help in convincing Newt Gingrich to step aside and clear a path to the nomination for Mitt Romney. Whoever cooked up this idea was not exactly firing on all cylinders, since (A) the member in question, despite considerable seniority, is far from influential and (B) attempting to stand athwart Newt Gingrich’s ambition is like sticking your head in a howitzer. Remarkably, the member actually agreed to place the call. Gingrich’s response? Well, it was a three-word phrase that began with “go” and ended with “yourself.” I’d say Newt’s insurgent bona fides are still intact. — Tory Senik

Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in. If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them.. — George Soros

The president certainly had facts and figures at his disposal. He boasted that his regulatory reforms “will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years.” Wow. Ten billion smackeroos! That’s some savings – and in a mere half a decade! Why, it’s equivalent to what the government of the United States borrows every 53 hours. So by midnight on Thursday Obama had already re-borrowed all those hard-fought savings from 2017. “In the last 22 months,” said the president, “businesses have created more than three million jobs.” Impressive. But 125,000 new foreign workers arrive every month (officially). So we would have to have created 2,750,000 jobs in that period just to stand still. — Mark Steyn

After all, if you confiscated the total wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans it would come to $1.5 trillion. Which is just a wee bit less than the federal shortfall in just one year of Obama-sized budgets. 2011 deficit: $1.56 trillion. But maybe for 2012 a whole new Forbes 400 of Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs will emigrate to the Hamptons and Malibu and keep the whole class-warfare thing going for a couple more years. — Mark Steyn

We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, (audience boos) and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America. — Allen West