Pastoral Resources

Democrats are going to proudly run on the fact that we turned the economy around. It was our policies under President Obama's leadership through the Recovery Act, through investing in the automobile industry.

Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you are a liberal or a conservative, we know that neither this President nor prior Presidents of both parties did everything right or we would not have had a 9/11.

You know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President.

So far the changes in the president in his second term have been mainly of a rhetorical nature.

The president does not have any obligation to make a consensus appointment here. What the president's obligation is, is to pick a judicial conservative, and I believe that's what he's gonna do.

You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last.

So we need the same strategy, we need young, aggressive judges to be appointed, and that's what the President has done, but getting them through is the challenge.

I don't think anybody has that crystal ball but the president.

Moreover, from reforming the tax code to our immigration system, to commonsense legal reform, President Bush put America on notice that he will continue fighting to make the country, and the world, a better place for future generations.

In the first State of the Union of his second term, President Bush made clear to Americans tonight that he is not going to play the role of a lame duck President.

Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime.

Under the leadership of this President, the state of the union is not strong. We are being pulled apart rather than pulling together. Our democracy is suffering from the choices being made, and yet we are offered the same tired excuses and unrealistic analyses.

The President also talked at length about how well the American economy is doing. Apparently, he got his information on this topic from his millionaire supporters. For the average working family, these are trying economic times.

Iraq continues to be an immense disaster, and the President has no apparent plan for getting our troops out.

Sure, it is apparent that presidents are looking at polls, but they are also stepping up on issues. President Clinton stepped up on tobacco. He shaped the polls on the tobacco issue.

I think President Bush tried to step up on Social Security even though the polls showed that was unpopular. He has not been successful and backed off, but I admire people who take on big problems.

Barack Obama is a truly flabbergasting President. And in a good way - not the way some of his predecessors were. He's not flabberghastly. He's not the student who wears a button that says, 'Smartest kid in class,' but clearly he is, at least when surrounded by the White House press corps.

Mandela once phoned me out of the blue while he was still president, and at first he played with me a bit.

I won vice president of my student body in high school. That doesn't mean anything.

The last president we had was the smartest guy anyone could remember and he did the dumbest thing anyone has ever seen in the White House so go figure.