Signature Quotes: Politics: The Clintons

These are from my collection of sig quotes, collected from years of crawling about the Internet. Share and Enjoy...


"Our campaign is the opposite of 'competence.'"
- Clinton aide Eli Segal, quoted in the 7/22/92 Wall Street Journal 
Statement made by Oliver North when asked to comment on Clinton's draft record.
"I would rather vote for Jane Fonda than Gov. Clinton! At least she has been to North Vietnam." 
"Special note to all press from the highest authority: don't touch the cat again." - President-elect Bill Clinton's first executive order 
"I want to make it very clear that this middle-class tax cut, in my view, is central to any attempt we're going to make to have a short-term economic strategy and a long-term fairness strategy, which is part of getting this country going again." --William J. Clinton ABC News, Primary Debate, Manchester, NH 1/19/92 
"You just can't promise something like that just to get elected if you know there's a good chance that circumstances may overtake you." - Bill Clinton, East Lansing MI debate, Mon Oct 19 1992 
Sen. Pete Domencini (R)-New Mexico: "We're going to ask the American people to pay more so we can spend more, is that fair to say?"
Dr. Alice Rivlin, Clinton appointee to the OMB: "That's one way to look at it, yes, Senator." 
"You'd better call my dad...My mom's pretty busy." -- Chelsea Clinton 
"[the United States] can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..." -- President William Clinton, March 1, 1993 during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ source: Boston Globe, 3/2/93, page 3 
"It is a disgrace to the American people that the President of the United States would make a claim that is so baseless, that is so without foundation, so shameless..." -- Presidental Candidate William J. Clinton, October 1992, in response to Bush campaign commercials that claimed Clinton's campaign promises would require raising taxes on every family earning over $36,600 
"I am not interested in raising taxes if we cannot get the spending cuts." -- President Clinton, Feb. 1993 
"I've heard a lot of people compare Bill Clinton to Jimmy Carter, and I'd like to go on record as saying that I don't think that it's fair. Jimmy Carter was a veteran, and he had personal character. And even though I can't agree with Carter's policies, I always believed that he was telling the truth, as best he understood it. I can't say that for the Fat Cat..." -- Kenneth D. Whitehead (kdw@icd.ab.com) 
"Clinton is just a better liar than George [Bush] is." -- Jared Dahl jdahl@rchland.vnet.ibm.com 
Q: How can you tell the difference between Al Gore and a wooden Indian?
A: One of them is dressed like an Indian. 
Q: What's the difference between JFK and Bill Clinton?
A: What Kennedy did to Marilyn Monroe, Clinton's doing to America. 
"Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . ." It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs." -- President William Jefferson Clinton, 5/1/93 
"You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say." -- President William Clinton addressing the people of Philadelphia, May 28, 1993 in the Courtyard, City Hall, Philadelphia, PA 
The Great Tragedy of the 20th century is that Clinton's name isn't on the Wall. 
"It was hard to see, but a week ago Friday the Clinton administration, while driving a large black sedan at high speed across the 14th street bridge, opened the door and shoved out their revised downward GDP estimate for this year, to 2.5% from 3.1%." - Wall Street Journal Monday July 12 1993 (p A12) 
"Spending programs are now 'investments,' taxes are 'contributions,' and these are the same people who say _I_ need a dictionary?" - Dan Quayle 2/19/93 
"I'll tell you what I'm afraid of Zip...Bill Clinton's bumbling ineptitude." -- Bill Griffith, author of `Zippy the Pinhead' 
GRIDLOCK (n), term denoting Congressional resistance to the President's agenda. This term may be used ONLY when Clinton's agenda is opposed by Congressional Republicans. Not to be confused with "healthy disagreement", an otherwise identical situation that exists when Clinton is opposed by Congressional Democrats (i.e., Majority Whip David Bonior,D-MI). See NAFTA, Health Care Reform, National Performance Review, etc. 
"I can't worry about every under capatilized business" -- Hillary Clinton testifing before congress on the effects of Nationalized Health Care. 
"People will be hunting Democrats with dogs by the end of the century" Phil Gramm (when asked what would result if Clinton's proposals were passed) 
"The period we're in is a lobbyist's dream come true" -- Joan Claybrook, head of the advocacy group Public Citizen, describing the atmosphere of the Clinton Administration. 
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.." -- President William Jefferson Clinton, USA TODAY 11 Mar 93 
"The money we cut from the military would have been sufficient to lower unemplyment, to increase growth, to give us what we need in education and training, were it not for the enormous inflation in health-care cost and the size of the deficit I confronted when I took office." -- President William Clinton, Rolling Stone interview 11/93 
"Clinton joins all of the deceit, paranoia and desire for absolute control of a Richard Nixon with the muddled, pseudo-intellectual paternalism of a George McGovern." -- Christopher Morton 
"[Clinton's] Administration is easily the most reckless in interfering with the integrity of Federal investigative agencies since that of Richard Nixon." -- NY Times editorial, "White House Ethics Meltdown", 3/4/94 
"I don't like to use the word sacrifice." - Bill Clinton, May 1992
"It will not be easy, it will require sacrifice." - Bill Clinton, Jan 1993 
"[President Clinton] said he directed advisers to craft a policy allowing police to search public housing for weapons in the wake of a federal court order barring Chicago officials from conducting sweeps without search warrants." - Associated Press: (Chicago Tribune, 4/10/94 Section 1 page 10) 
Benito Mussolini : Old Socialist ===> New Fascist
Bill Clinton : Old Democrat ===> New Democrat 
President Bill Clinton on the Constitution:
"When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ..." "And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities." -- President Bill Clinton, 3-22-94, MTV's "Enough is Enough" 
"He (Bill Clinton) is the Willy Loman of Generation X , a traveling salesman who has the loyalty of a lizard with his tail broken off and the midnight taste of a man who'd double date with the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart" -- Hunter S. Thompson 
".....African-Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do. " -- President Clinton on Black Entertainment Television, November 2, 1994 
"My least favorite president. A bright man. In some ways, even -- at least policywise -- a brave man. And an energetic man. He has all the things I would look for in a president or want to see, but he's just so unable to come clean with us and admit anything to us that at his very foundation, I can't take him seriously. I just don't believe him because I don't think he tells us the truth about anything. I think at some point if he wants to truly be embraced by the American people, he should drop the pretense, the artifice and just look us in the eye and say 'Yeah I inhaled it, and then I drank the bong water. What are you gonna do?' He's not a bad man. He's just the sort of guy who will always volunteer to help you move, then when you got four of you picking up the sofa, he's the one who will fake lifting." Dennis Miller on President Clinton 
"As to the testimony of some of Thomas' friends that he was interested in porn while he was in college - let me get this straight. Al Gore writes that the army is a fascist regime, it's ok - just an example of those silly views you get at college. Clarence Thomas watched porn and talked about it to friends - from what I've heard, male friends - and it's an example of a life-long obsession with sex and porn." -- jfarrell@utkvx.utk.edu on alt.politics.clinton 
... Clinton of Borg: Prepare to be ... say, that's a tight skirt, baby. 
William Clinton = anagram "I'm it, an ill clown." 
For a team that Clinton promised would adhere to a "higher ethical standard" his administration has presided over an extraordinary amount of corruption and an unprecedented number of high-level officials forced to resign in disgrace. -- The Times (of London), Feb 12, 1995. 
"Stephanopoulos knew that it was a mistake to assume that any one moment with Clinton, any one conversation, day, or even week reflected Clinton's true feelings or unchanging fundamental attitude about something." Bob Woodward, in his book "The Agenda" 
"The President's essential character flaw isn't dishonesty so much as a-honesty. It isn't that Clinton means to say things that are not true, or that he cannot make true, but that everything is true for him when he says it, because he says it. Clinton means what he says when he says it, but tomorrow he will mean what he says when he says the opposite. He is the existential President, living with absolute sincerety in the passing moment." -- Michael Kelly, "The President's Past," New York Times Magazine, July 31, 1994 
"I wish we could give people more control over their lives, not less." --- Bill Clinton 
"...unfortunately we can't control the actions of everyone." --- Bill Clinton 1993-04-20 
Clinton only received 43% of the vote, and less than 35% of the eligible voters, voted. That works out to less than 16% of the eligible vote. Some Mandate! 
"It would be the equivalent of having the prime minister of England invite the Oklahoma City bombers to 10 Downing Street, to congradulate them on a job well done." -- Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher responding to President Clinton's red-carpet welcome for Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams; Newsweek 5/15/95 page 19 
"When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it." -- President Bill Clinton 3/22/94
"When your President abuses your personal freedom, you move to limit him." -- American Voters 11/8/94 
"You can't say you love your country and hate your government." - Bill Clinton, 1995 (After the OKC bombing)

"A lot of wonderful people love their country and hate the military." - Bill Clinton, 1969 (Letter to the National Guard) 


"Everything we do looks sinister, even when it's innocent screw-ups." --unnamed White House official, Washington Post, 1/7/94 
"There's a great deal of difference between responsible dissent and some of the things that are taking place in this country which I consider to be extremely dangerous to our national interest and I consider it not very helpful to the [people trying to maintain order]"

Sounds like Clinton talking about the militias, doesn't it?

Surprise, it's LBJ talking about peace protestors.

Replace "men that are fighting the war for us" with "law enforcement officers fighting crime for us". Isomorphism.

kjackson@cs.tamu.edu (Keith E Jackson) 


"We still will have the freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of movement, but we may have to have more discipline in doing it..." -President Bill Clinton refering to his Ominibus Counterterrorism Act on "60 Minutes". 
"Well, that's because the 'normal opinions' of 'real Americans,' ... bear a strong resemblance to dog shit." -- phenry@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Paul H. Henry), a very vocal Liberal & Clinton defender. (posted to alt.politics.clinton 7/17/95) 
"In this changing, complex and exciting world with exploding expectations, we need to find some common ground. We need people and ideas to turn to bind us, and Mahatma Gandhi with his message of oneness for mankind is one of them." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton; addressing the commemoration of the 125th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi held on July 14th, 1995 in Washington 
Bill Clinton, 12/3/69, in letter to Lt. Col. Eugene Holmes:

"I am writing too in the hope that my telling you this one story will help you to understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military ..."

Bill Clinton, 7/20/95, in address to Federal Law Enforcement meeting:

"It is irresponsible for people in elected positions to suggest that the police are some sort of armed bureaucracy acting on private grudges and hidden agendas. That is wrong, it's inaccurate, and people who suggest that ought to be ashamed of themselves." 


Give Hillary a few billion, she'll invest us out of the deficit. 
"The greed of the 1980s can be summed up in two words: Cattle Futures!" 
"I never thought I'd miss Nancy Reagan. There can't be a rating [on the Clinton drug policy] when there hasn't been a performance." -- Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), April 24, 1993 
"[S]enior Administration officials, including Bentsen and Panetta, concede that the professed shock at higher deficit estimates issued after the election was largely feigned. Moreover, the new Clinton team issued initial budget projections soon after taking office that put absolutely the worst face possible on the deficit outlook, manipulating data to reinforce the impression that Bush had left Clinton with a fiscal nightmare." -- Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1994, p. D1. 
The following are excerpts from "THE CLINTON COUNTDOWN CALENDAR", which counts the number of weeks left until Clinton leaves office:

October, 1992 : Candidate Clinton says: "I'm not going to raise taxes on the middle-class Americans to pay for the programs I recommended."

February 15, 1993 : Less than one month after Inauguration, Clinton backtracked from his campaign promise to lower taxes for the middle class. From the oval office Clinton said "I had hoped to invest in your future by creating jobs, expanding education, reforming health care and reducing the debt without asking more of you ... but I can't." 


"I'll tell you the whole story about that budget. Probably there are people in this room still mad at me at that budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too." -- President Clinton, WASHINGTON (Oct 18, 1995 - 20:48 EDT) 
"Now President Clinton has walked away from the welfare bill he sent to Congress last year, just as the week before he renounced the tax increase he pushed to passage in 1993. What next? Perhaps he'll say he didn't mean to send up last year's health care reform proposals either. Mrs. Clinton made him do it. It becomes increasingly difficult to know what this president stands for, or whether he stands for anything." - Washington Post, Friday, November 3, 1995 
"He told us it was a crisis. He said, 'My presidency is on the line. It's an emergency.' It's always that way with him. He's always saying, 'These are the last days.' " -- Georgia Rep. John Lewis on Clinton's arm-twisting for votes (Newsweek, 8/29/94) 
Which of these quotes more closely expresses your beliefs:
A) R.Reagan : "Government is not a solution to our problem, government IS the problem."
B) B.Clinton: "Keep in mind that most of our problem is with working Americans" 
"Bill Clinton is an unusually good liar"- Senator Bob Kerry, Democrat, February 3, 1996, Esquire magazine interview.

"It was not an angry comment. It was actually intended as an off-handed compliment." Omaha World-Herald (2/5/96) [Senator Kerry commenting on the previous quote


"The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep." - George Stephanopolous on "Larry King Live" - 2/16/96 
"Confronted by angry Republican lawmakers, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jesse Brown acknowledged yesterday that the Clinton administration's seven-year plan for balancing the federal budget would 'devastate' his department. But Brown, who has described a Republican budget plan with smaller cuts in VA spending as 'mean-spirited,' refused to back down from his earlier, critical assessment of the GOP plan." -- THE WASHINGTON POST, 3/30/96 
"No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again." -- Candidate Clinton, Detroit Economic Club August 21, 1992 
"I'm not going to raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for the programs I've recommended." Candidate Clinton, Presidential Debate October 19, 1992 
"It's hard - maybe impossible - to say anymore what Bill Clinton stands for...In the last month or so, he has set a personal best for pandering, rejecting his own tax bill and welfare program. He has abandoned longtime friends when they came under political attack (Lani Guinier was just the first) and so enraged his one-time supporters that it is at Washington dinner parties, not military bases as Jesse Helms once said." -- Columnist Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, 11/9/95 
"Bill Clinton gives the appearance of taking stands-for some sort of tax cut, some sort of welfare reform, some sort of balanced budget-but these are ploys, mirages: they exist only to undermine positions taken by the Republicans. He doesn't fight for anything substantive-except of course, re-election. ...He has fallen into the dangerous habit of lip synching the presidency: he gives the appearance of leadership, but not the substance." --Joe Klein (Newsweek, 10/23/95) 
"He's like the guy you don't want your child to go out with." --- Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor (The Washington Post,8/8/95) 
"Indeed, the president and his advisers have made an important discovery: Demagoguery trumps honesty on important national issues...In the end, Clinton remains unrivaled as a campaigner. But the last time we looked, the president has some responsibilities besides watching the polls and running for re-election:
And they include governing the country." --- New York Post editorial, 11/19/95 
"We have witnessed a spectacle in the past month that, though not unique in American history, is certainly rare and remarkable. It is the spectacle of a president actively striving to poison public opinion against a policy that he deems best for the country -- all to bolster his own political stock."---Robert J. Samuelson 
"If President Clinton has his way, we will have a false debate in the 1996 election campaign. It will not engage real political choices -- choices framed by our appetite for government services and our distaste for taxes -- but rather artificial choices crafted by Clinton to advance his reelection. Clinton has clearly been using the budget as an election platform...I dislike using the word 'lies,' but Clinton exploits such forbearance (widespread in the press) to spread untruths." --Columnist Robert J. Samuelson, The Washington Post, 1/17/96 
"I'm not sure what he meant. His words are subject to multiple interpretations." --Dem. Rep. Pete Geren on Clinton (Dallas Morning News, 1/26/94) 
"Most of the Democrats really want to support this president-as soon as we can find out where he is." ---NY Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter, The Boston Globe, 7/6/95 
"The number of female-headed families in poverty has grown by 175,000 since Bill Clinton assumed the presidency. (Census Bureau, 10/5/95) [R]eal wages of the median worker have fallen 4.6 % since 1979 -- and more than half that drop, or 2.5 %, has come after Clinton's inauguration." (Time, 1/29/96) 
"If Bill Clinton can get above 60% in the polls, he can start dating again..." -- Senator Fritz Hollings, Democrat, South Carolina 
First Lady Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpeonaed documents
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
James B. Stewart - Blood Sport:The President and His Adversaries 
"Hiking the minimum wage is "the wrong way to raise the incomes of low-wage earners." -- Bill Clinton, Time Magazine, February 6, 1995 
"It's as if someone upset a beehive around here. Every time we stick our heads up, we get stung." -- A White House aide lamenting a series of Clinton administration scandals 
"We cannot solve every such outburst of civil strife or militant nationalism simply by sending in our forces." -- Pres. Bill Clinton, on the conflict in Rwanda 
"This speech is a lot like a Bill Clinton promise: it won't last long, and it will sound like a Republican talking!" -- New York Congresswoman Susan Molinari - Keynote Speech at the 1996 GOP Convention 
If Bill Clinton and the Democrats want to build a bridge to the future,
they better not let Ted Kennedy try to drive across it. 
"[The Clinton White House is] so shoddy, so saturated with petty manipulations, snooping and spying, rampant cronyism and tacky deceits that it makes you cringe." -- David Broder (The Washington Post, 7/14/93) 
"Clinton may not believe anything but his friends have convictions - for bank fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy..." -- Halley Barber 
"It is that they have no conviction, no ideology, no guiding purpose. Driven by raw ambition, they will make any compromise necessary to advance their interests." -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Electronic Telegraph, 6/19. describing Roger Morris' take on the Rodham-Clintons. 
Sep 07 92: Col. Eugene Holmes, USA Ret., signs a notarized statement in which he asserts that "there is the imminent danger to our country of a draft dodger becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States." He later writes that "I believe that he (Clinton) purposefully deceived me, using the possibility of joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his induction and get a new draft reclassification." -- [Letter reprinted in Washington Times, Sep 17 1992] 
"He has not a creative bone in his body...He's a bore,and will always be a bore." -- Retiring TV commentator David Brinkley, talking about President Clinton on election night 1996. 
Pretty much like every American...watch his weight and try to stay out of jail." -- David Letterman on President's Clinton's Goals for a second term. 
"To some degree, we have just re-elected an unloved president. Polls show that we approve of Clinton -- the economy is good and the country is at peace -- but the same polls show that we don't trust him very much." -- Stephen Hess, a political analyst at Washington's Brookngs Institution 
"Everyone has Chinese arms merchants to lunch -- don't you?" Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) in The New York Post 
"Being president is a job for just one person. And for the next four years that person is Hillary." -- Dan Rather, Cleveland Plain Dealer 15 Jan. 1993 
"It is wrong to raise money on the promise of guaranteeing specific kinds of access. That is wrong and we have stopped that." -- President Bill Clinton, August 4, 1995

"Mistakes were made..." -- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 1997, finally admitting that he and the DNC continued to 'raise money on the promise of guaranteeing specific kinds of access.' 


"The President and the American people are indeed fortunate to have your dedication and talent at their service," Louis J. Freeh to Craig Livingstone, in a letter written on Jan. 3, 1994. 
"I think the ethical standards established in this White House have been the highest in the history of the White House." -- Al Gore, October 1996 
WITNESSES' MEMORY LAPSES DURING COMMITTEE DEPOSITIONS
Bill Kennedy 116
Harold Ickes 148
Ricki Seidman 160
Bruce Lindsey 161
Bill Burton 191
Mark Gearan 221
Mack McLarty 233
Neil Egglseston 250
HRC 250
John Podesta 264
Jennifer O'Connor 343
Dwight Holton 348
Patsy Thomasson 420
Jeff Eller 697 
"I'd like to thank my long-time friend John Huang for being so effective....Frankly, he's been so effective, I was amazed that you were all cheering for him tonight after he's been around in his aggressive efforts to help our cause." -- President Clinton, appearing at a July 1996 fund-raiser in L.A. 
"...get other names at $100,000 or more, $50,000 or more. Ready to start overnights right away. Give me the top 10 list back, along w/the $100, $50,000." -- President Clinton, in handwritten note to his staff, early 1995 
"I think the president misled the American people at the least. He said the Lincoln Bedroom was not for sale. Now we got his handwritten note personally authorizing overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom for top party contributors -- there's no question what it refers to. What the president said not only rings hollow... I hate to use the term `lie`, but it's awful close." -- Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind) 
"Money had become the driving force, rather than politics. The richest people are getting to office and we didn't want to be part of it." -- Television producer BARBARA CORDAY, a founding member of the Women's Political Committee, explaining the liberal fundraising group's decision to disband. 
Despite President Clinton's public rebuke of the FBI, senior administration officials say they have concluded that the White House's own personnel and procedures bear significant responsibility for a breakdown in communications that left Clinton unaware of an investigation into suspected Chinese influence buying. -- Washington Post, April 9, 1997, page A01 (www.washingtonpost.com
"I just got sick and tired of lying for the fella." -- Jim McDougal on President Clinton
On to Page 2
The First Couple
P.J.O'Rourke Quotes 
RKBA &Victim Disarment Quotes 
Main Polyticks Quote page 
Main Quote Page