Top 108 Quotes & Sayings by Rahm Emanuel - Page 2

You have a burden going into any campaign when you're raising money to fund that effort because there's always a desire to spend more money than you have.

Bob Rubin was opposed to signing the welfare bill. He's not exactly what I call a flaming liberal.

I remember my father, when I said I was going down to Little Rock to work for Governor Clinton's run for president, he thought maybe somebody needed to check the medication cabinet. He thought somebody was playing around with it. He had never heard of him, he said. I said, 'Well, I think he's going to be the next President of the United States.'

Every policy officer is sworn to protect life, and, under the most extreme circumstances, to take life. It is a staggering responsibility that requires officers to make split second decisions.

I do not believe the government has the right to investigate somebody's private life.

Permitting and protecting even the smallest acts of abuse by a tiny fraction of our officers leads to a culture where extreme acts of abuse are more likely.

Deliberation is a good thing when it comes to fighting wars.

I should say the leadership's proposal in the Senate and the House are very unpopular. And when people realize it will raise taxes, raise their insurance premiums cost and explode the deficit, they think twice about it.

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

We need to deal with the problem of al Qaeda, make sure that they can't have a sanctuary in Afghanistan and guarantee that we have regional stabilization and particularly focused on Pakistan.

Banks are slowly but surely lending again, and never again will taxpayers foot the bill for Wall Street’s excesses. In case we forgot, that was the change we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

I mean,you will have an Afghan government. There are two roads here. One is obviously a run-off election or a negotiated settlement. But what's most important about that process is that there's a credibility and a legitimacy to the government at the end of that process. So which road they choose, that's up to them. It must have - be legitimate and credible in the eyes of the Afghan people.

I do not believe that a counterterrorism strategy all by itself, without a sufficient level of counterinsurgency, will work.

We have come a long way and we have a little further to go.

Every election is different, every context is different. I believe the record I was allowed to help establish by the side of the president Bill Clinton was important.

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that: it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

I hope President [Hamid] Karzai understands that our national security interests don't depend entirely on his decision there whether to allow a recount. Obviously the legitimacy of that government is an important component of it. My point is it shouldn't be the lynch pin for us deciding whether we're going to protect our national security interests in that region.

We've been at war for many years in Afghanistan following 9/11. We know that we've got young men and women on the ground now. We've got our blood and treasure at stake there already.

Take your f***ing tampon out and tell me what you have to say.

Republicans are 'bad people who deserve a two-by-four upside their heads.'

You may say I may be unfit to be mayor. But you can never say I'm an unfit mayor.

Whose leadership, whose judgment, whose values do you want in the White House when that lands like a thud on the oval office desk?

As we move forward, I am looking for a new leader of the Chicago Police Department to address the problems at the very heart of the policing profession. The problem is sometimes referred to as "the thin blue line." The problem is other times referred to as "the code of silence." It is this tendency to ignore. It is the tendency to deny. It is the tendency, in some cases, to cover up the bad actions of a colleague or colleagues.

The problem is, you have to look at Afghanistan also in a global context where we've canceled basically our missile defense system undercutting the Czech Republic in Poland. We've I think not dealt with Iran with the kind of resolve that would show that we understand the nature of that threat.

No officer should be allowed to behave as if they are above the law, just because they are responsible for upholding the law.

What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked 'a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?

Because of the president’s leadership, every American will have access to affordable, quality health care.

[Obama White House] rescued the economy from the worst recession.

I think indeed our response on counterinsurgency needs to be finely tuned to the needs of Afghanistan. This is not Iraq. We don't have a Sons of Iraq here. We don't have the same divisions here that we had between Sunni and Shia.

Personally, I don't pick books for how people think about me. I read books so I can learn.

Obviously what I think Senator [John] Kerry was pointing to, which is absolutely correct, which is the essential part of the strategy or a key component or a leg on the stool, is an Afghan partner that is ready to take control of both the security situation in Afghanistan, and the civilian side of that.

We're bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns.

I think the most important thing for us to make judgments about is what can we really do? What can we achieve?

Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values.

I like what I read, I find it intellectually engaging and I don't really have that much time, so I gotta make every bit count. I read magazines and stuff like that, but if I'm going to read a book, I want to come out smarter. It's not to escape, it's to learn.

Nearly losing my life made me want to live my life.

The Afghan - obviously the parties will decide which course of action. The most important there, get a government that is seen as legitimate to the people and has the credibility to be a partner in the effort to secure Afghanistan so it's not a haven for al Qaeda or other type of terrorists or international terrorist organizations.

At some point, deliberation begins to look more like indecisiveness which then becomes a way of emboldening our enemies and allies and causing our allies to question our resolve. So we shouldn't let one component of this determine our national security here which depends on providing an Afghanistan which denies a safe haven to terrorists as well as stabilizing Pakistan. Those are our two national security interests at stake in Afghanistan.

I've not been to Afghanistan or - but what people are clearly pointing to is that it becomes more difficult to have it. You could do it. I think weather is a factor. The most important factor though is credibility and legitimacy. What I wanted earlier to say is what I think Senator [John] Kerry is pointing to, which is important, is the strategic review on whether to send more troops is only one piece of the puzzle, important piece.

There has to be a reform within the government that is tangible, that we can actually measure and that we have confidence is going to provide some of the differences that I think are essential to our troops to be able to carry out their mission and to the longer- term interests of our country.

And it's time as a country that we have an assault weapon ban.

And the last thing that I want to see us do is ask more and more of our troops [in Afghanistan ] without guaranteeing that we're providing more and more of what's necessary to make the mission successful.

The moment somebody's a president and you call him "Mr. President," (the person represents) our culture, our history, our sense as our nation.

Counting the numbers of troops is not going to define our success here.There is no military success, ultimately, to Afghanistan. The Afghans themselves are going to define what happens here. And we have to convince ourselves that we have a strategy in place that empowers them to do that and that is realistic in what our expectations are from them and on what schedule.

President Obama made the right choice, over 1 million Americans are still working today. The American auto industry is not just surviving. It is thriving. Where Mitt Romney was willing to turn his back on Akron, Dayton, and Toledo, Ohio, the president said, "I've got your back''.

I think that every country presents its own particular challenges, different cultures, different histories, different religions, different people. And different ethnic make-ups in those countries present different challenges.

Our troops are the best in the world. I have absolute confidence in the ability of the troops who are here, or additional troops, to do their part.

We're proud of the work we're doing to make Chicago a great city for people of all ages. Nothing's more important than keeping in mind the needs of older adults - and how valuable a role they play in improving the city, based on their amazing collective talent and wisdom.