By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

Some quotes of interest to thinking people:

"You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." -- Barack Obama

"Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they're charging a lot of money for this stuff." -- Barack Obama

"...I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals." -- Barack Obama

"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." -- Barack Obama

"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a (flag) pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest..." -- Barack Obama

"And if that child should ever get the chance to travel the world and someone should ask her where is she from, we believe that she should always be able to hold her head high with pride in her voice when she answers, 'I am an American.'
That is the course we seek. That is the change we are calling for." -- Barack Obama

"America is ..., uh, is no longer, uh ... what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don't want that future for my children." -- Barack Obama

"I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. ..." -- Barack Obama

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ...You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection." -- Barack Obama

"...I inhaled frequently. That was the point." -- Barack Obama

"I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying." -- Barack Obama

"I am not in favor of concealed weapons. I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations." -- Barack Obama

"Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." -- Obama's website

"...I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." -- Barack Obama

"Rick Warren: ...Now, let's deal with abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time, all of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"

Barack Obama: "Well, you know, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." -- Barack Obama

"Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go." -- Barack Obama

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen." -- Barack Obama

"As Sen. Hillary Clinton was preparing to campaign here today, Sen. Barack Obama was meeting with voters at a diner and apparently pretty hungry.
'Why can't I just eat my waffle?' he said, when asked a foreign policy question by a reporter at the Glider Diner." -- Barack Obama

"In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies." -- Barack Obama

"Let's not play games. I was suggesting - you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith." -- Barack Obama

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling conventions. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.

But this strategy alone couldn't provide the distance I wanted, from Joyce or my past. After all, there were thousands of so-called campus radicals, most of them white and tenured and happily tolerant. No, it remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names." -- Barack Obama

"It was usually an effective tactic, another one of those tricks I had learned: (White) People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied, they were relieved -- such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time." -- Barack Obama

"That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know that they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn." -- Barack Obama

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere...That's the world! On which hope sits!" -- Barack Obama

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky." -- Barack Obama

"I don't believe it is possible to transcend race in this country. Race is a factor in this society. The legacy of Jim Crow and slavery has not gone away." -- Barack Obama

"I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." -- Barack Obama

"The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person..." -- Barack Obama

Barack's Race Baiting Spiritual Mentor & Confidant

"What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice. He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics." -- Barack Obama

"Just before Obama's nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: 'When [Obama's] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli' to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, 'a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.'

According to Wright, Obama then told him, 'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public.' But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement." -- Ronald Kessler, Newsmax

"Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body." -- Jeremiah Wright

"...White folks' greed runs a world in need..." -- Jeremiah Wright

"In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just 'disappeared' as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns." -- Jeremiah Wright

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God d*mn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God d*mn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God d*mn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme." -- Jeremiah Wright

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost." -- Jeremiah Wright

"America is still the No. 1 killer in the world." -- Jeremiah Wright

"We started the AIDS virus. ...We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty." -- Jeremiah Wright

"The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied." -- Jeremiah Wright

Michelle Obama

"(America is) just downright mean." -- Michelle Obama

"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction." -- Michelle Obama

"It's easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That's America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?" -- Michelle Obama

"...(T)he realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know." -- Michelle Obama

"What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first." -- Michelle Obama

"I wake up every morning wondering how on earth I am going to pull off that next minor miracle to get through the day. I know that everybody in this room is going through this. That is the dilemma women face today. Every woman that I know, regardless of race, education, income, background, political affiliation, is struggling to keep her head above water." -- Michelle Obama

"Who's got time to go to the fruit stand? Who can afford it, first of all?" -- Michelle Obama

"Asked how she feels about Bill Clinton's use of the phrase 'fairytale' to describe her husband's characterization of his position on the Iraq war, (Michelle Obama) first responded: 'No.' But, after a few seconds of contemplation, and gesturing with her fingernails, she told the reporter: 'I want to rip his eyes out!'
Noticing an aide giving her a nervous look, she added: 'Kidding! See, this is what gets me into trouble.'" -- WorldNetDaily

"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more." -- Michelle Obama

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed." -- Michelle Obama

The Voice Of Experience In The Obama Campaign

"You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent." -- Joe Biden

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.I mean, that's a storybook, man." -- Joe Biden

"The more people learn about them (Obama and Hillary) and how they handle the pressure, the more their support will evaporate." -- Joe Biden

"My impression is [Obama] thinks that if we leave, somehow the Iraqis are going to have an epiphany" of peaceful coexistence among warring sects. I've seen zero evidence of that." -- Joe Biden

"We can call it quits and withdraw from Iraq. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out -- equally a mistake." -- Joe Biden

"ANNOUNCER: What does Barack Obama's running mate say about Barack Obama?
ABC'S GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You were asked, "Is he ready?" You said, "I think he can be ready but right now, I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training."
JOE BIDEN: I think that I stand by the statement.
ANNOUNCER: And what does he say about John McCain?
BIDEN: I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off." -- Biden Quoted In McCain Ad

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the princes of greed." -- Joe Biden

"Chuck, Stand Up, Chuck. Let Them See You. Oh, God Love You, What Am I Talking About?" -- Joe Biden to a man in a wheelchair