And that, I suppose, is what I'd been trying to tell my mother that day: that her faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn't overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help you plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.
Barack ObamaI am willing to work with anybody who wants to have a serious conversation about our fiscal future. We're not going to do this under the threat of blowing up the entire economy. I will not negotiate over Congress' responsibility to pay the bills that have already been racked up. I don't know how I can be more clear about this.
Barack ObamaI do have an obligation to make sure that I am following some of the rules. I can't simply ignore laws that are out there.
Barack ObamaThere is a little bit of that schoolyard attitude of, it's one thing for a guy your own size to mouth off to you, but if there's a little guy, you should just smack him around. And it's probably bad advice in the schoolyard. It's certainly not a good way to run a foreign policy because even when you are dealing with a non-peer, militarily, war is complicated.
Barack Obama