Monday, February 16, 2009

President's Day Part II "The Not So Wise"

Richard Nixon (1969-1974): "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

William Jefferson Clinton (1993-2001): "That depends on what your definition of "is" is."

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989):"One problem that we've had, even in the best of times, is the people sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice." --

Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961):"Things are more like they are now than they ever were before."

Gerald Ford (1974-1977): "If Abraham Lincoln was alive today he would roll over in his grave"

But deserving of a book all his own is "W."

"We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made."

"I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican"

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."

" There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

"And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."


"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

President's Day Part I "The Wise"

Today we salute all 44 of our Presidents, good or bad.

Here's some food for thought from a few of the best and not so best:

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933): "Prosperity cannot be restored by raids upon the public treasury."

James Madison (1809-1817): "Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christianity, in exclusion of all other Sects?"

James Monroe (1817-1825): "The earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable, and no tribe or people have a right to withhold from the wants of others more than is necessary for their own support and comfort."

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809): "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..."

William Henry Harrison (1841): "There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power."

Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865): "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877): "I shall have no policy of my own to interfere against the will of the people."

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909): "A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad."

William Howard Taft (1909-1913): "The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make corn to grow, he cannot make business good..."

John F. Kennedy (1961-1963): "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

George Washington (1789-1797): "Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person's own mind than on the externals of the world."