Obama Reagan Quotes & Sayings

Fox News gets to the heart of the Zombie Reagan story:
Well, Jeremy, of course on line polls are not at all scientific, in fact they're pretty much completely bogus and in this case it's one that was made up on the spot by a high school student, but we all know that misleading non-information is always better than dead air, so here goes. The earliest survey taken since the rather startling resurrection of the former president is looking awfully good for the challenger and awfully not good for President Obama. — John Barnes

The most revered presidents - Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama - have each advanced populist imperialism while gradually increasing inclusion of other groups beyond the core of descendants of old settlers into the ruling mythology. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

[Ronald Reagan] appealed to that group of [working American] people and we can do it again, because they've had, now, eight years of [Barak] Obama. Things have not gone well. — Jeff Sessions

President Obama had a few historians at the White House for a couple of dinners. I was lucky enough to be one of those asked, and he was very interested in Ronald Reagan, and I came away feeling that. — Douglas Brinkley

Ronald Reagan was an actor. Not at all a factor,
Just an employee of the country's real masters.
Just like the Bushes, Clinton and Obama,
Just another talkin' head tellin' lies on teleprompters.
If you don't believe the theory, then argue with this logic:
Why did Reagan and Obama both go after Gaddafi?
We invaded sovereign soil, goin' after oil
Takin' countries as a hobby paid for by the oil lobby,
Same as Iraq and Afghanistan.
And Ahmadinejad sayin' they comin' for Iran ... — Killer Mike

The Chavez-Obama pictures will join a postmodern photo array that includes Donald Rumsfeld gifting Saddam Hussein with spurs from President Reagan. — Christine Pelosi

This crisis started probably due to the freedom they gave to the banks. First President [Ronald] Reagan and then President [Bill] Clinton. So, for [Barack] Obama it is extremely difficult to change now, to find a way to organize this banking system [differently]. — Costa-Gavras

Barack Obama's discovering what a nightmare dealing with hostage problems is - a discovery previously made by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, i don't see a lot of room for change in American policy. — Bruce Riedel

In the first weeks of the Obama administration, 'bipartisanship' was the reigning buzzword, and when the Beltway thinks 'bipartisan,' it pictures President Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill putting aside their differences and forging a legislative partnership, a ruddy pair of genial patriarchs bonding over the Blarney Stone. — James Wolcott

I thought Obama ran the best campaign I have ever known - disciplined, well organised, very, very good. I was very impressed. — Nancy Reagan

As a candidate, Obama projected himself as a new Reagan, above narrow party politics. He wanted to please all but has ended up annoying many. — Tariq Ali

President Obama has lowered taxes more than he has raised them, and they are today lower than they were in President Reagan's time. But you don't hear conservatives crowing about that. — Eric Alterman

Reagan has become the Right's Obama: a man whose every action is to be treated as ipso facto brilliant, perhaps even divinely inspired. — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

After 25 quarters of so-called recovery under Obama, it has increased a total of only 14.3 percent. Compare this to earlier periods. After the JFK tax cuts of the early 1960s, the economy grew in total by roughly 40 percent. After the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s, the economy grew by a total of 34 percent. — Lawrence Kudlow

The question is not whether we should or should not regulate; it
is how much should we regulate and who the regulators should
be. We went overboard on deregulation under Reagan. Under
Bush, many people lost in the casino. Now we have the Obama
administration overreacting and overreaching with regulation that
does the exact opposite of wealth creation. If we are to have change
we can believe in, then we could start by replacing the majority
of the lawyers in regulatory agencies with actual experienced, successful
business veterans. They would have recognized the early warning
signs of many of the financial debacles created by the bubble-bust
cycle. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Obama learned from Ronald Reagan that it helps to strike an optimistic tone. But genuine optimism deriving from American exceptionalism, it turns out, does not come naturally to him. — John Podhoretz

I think that Obama is very cool. And I think he's clever, and I think he can be witty. But I don't think he's funny in either the way that Reagan was funny - or John McCain and Dick Cheney are both funny in that ruthless, kind of mean way. — Mo Rocca

Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is, 'We are above that now. We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something.' I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world. He's sort of God. He's going to bring all different sides together. — Chris Matthews

It's not that Jackson had a "dark side," as his apologists rationalize and which all human beings have, but rather that Jackson was the Dark Knight in the formation of the United States as a colonialist, imperialist democracy, a dynamic formation that continues to constitute the core of US patriotism. The most revered presidents - Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama - have each advanced populist imperialism while gradually increasing inclusion of other groups beyond the core of descendants of old settlers into the ruling mythology. All the presidents after Jackson march in his footsteps. Consciously or not, they refer back to him on what is acceptable, how to reconcile democracy and genocide and characterize it as freedom for the people. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

To his credit, Obama didn't just come to Washington to be someone. Like Reagan, he came to Washington to do something - to introduce a powerful social democratic stream into America's deeply and historically individualist polity. — Charles Krauthammer

[I]f you look at United States history since World War II, you find that of the 10 presidents who preceded Barack Obama, seven left office with a debt ratio lower than when they came in. Who were the three exceptions? Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. — Paul Krugman

A troubled economy is always the sitting president's fault. It was when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, and when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by running against George W. Bush. — Mark McKinnon

Carter's hopes died when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and he ended up having to reverse policy and launch the military buildup that Reagan continued. Mr. Obama would be forced back into a war on terror if terrorist groups pull off enough damaging or frightening attacks to force this issue to the fore. — Walter Russell Mead

Futurism is another American myth: whether Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan or Obama, American presidents all come into office with a new program, and the conviction that the country is going to be better than ever. — James Hillman

Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama. — Thomas Sowell

Ronald Reagan cut taxes to raise the deficit to stop liberals in future years from increasing spending. Obama will raise spending to raise the deficit to stop conservatives in future years from cutting taxes. As he funds every liberal dream - from alternative energy production to infrastructure renovation to more federal revenue sharing - he will force a massive expansion in the size of government for a decade to come. — Dick Morris

I might have arguments with the size of Reagan's military buildup, but given the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, staying ahead of the Soviets militarily seemed a sensible thing to do. Pride in our country, respect for our armed services, a healthy appreciation for the dangers beyond our borders, an insistence that there was no easy equivalence between East and West
in all this I had no quarrel with Reagan. And when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote. — Barack Obama

Obama was the fourth president I had worked for who said outright that he wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons (Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41 were the others). Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former defense secretary Bill Perry, and former senator Sam Nunn had also called for "going to zero." The only problem, in my view, was that I hadn't heard the leaders of any other nuclear country - Britain, France, Russia, China, India, or Pakistan - signal the same intent. — Robert M. Gates

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. — Barack Obama

Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet. — Barack Obama

With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans. — Dick Morris

What Reagan ushered in was a skepticism toward government solutions to every problem. I don't think that has changed — Barack Obama

It's interesting how Obama's adorers in the press keep comparing him to Lincoln and Reagan. Apparently they can't think of a Democrat president worthy of being compared to. — Ann Coulter

Think about one of the most powerful influences on a young child's life - the absence of a father figure. Look back on recent presidents, and you'll find an absent, or weak, or failed father in the lives of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. — Jeff Greenfield

I don't think President Obama has been that revolutionary in reaching out to ethnic communities. President Reagan did a lot for the black community that people don't realize. — Terrence Howard

I'm very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. — Nancy Reagan

Impeach President Reagan retroactively for agreeing with Obama on the assault weapons ban. — John Fugelsang

The United States had a long bipartisan tradition of negotiating with even its worst enemies, from John Kennedy
'Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate
to Richard Nixon's opening with China, to Ronald Reagan's famous 'walk in the woods' with MIkhail Gorbachev. Obama's position was firmly in line with longstanding diplomatic practice. George W. Bush's post-9/11 policy
'You are either for us or against us'
was the exception, and a bad one. It removed subtlety from international affairs. — Mark Bowden

In the Reagan administration, a great speech was just the first step in a long process. In the Obama administration, it's the only step. — Kathleen Troia McFarland

Ronald Reagan knew who he was. Barack Obama is still working through that equation politically. — Joe Scarborough

Don't worry, America. We survived Jimmy Carter, and we will survive Barack Obama. Only one questions remains ... who is the next Ronald Reagan? — Kathleen Troia McFarland

Remember when Ronald Reagan was president? We had Bob Hope. We had Johnny Cash. Think about where we are today. We have got President Obama. But we have no hope and we have no cash. — John Boehner

During the Reagan years the left fretted about "two hundred billion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see." What were annual deficits under Reagan became monthly deficits under Obama. In less than eight years, Obama has doubled the national debt. — Dinesh D'Souza

He has attempted to muddy the waters, but I think anyone that watched the battle that we had - you know, there was a time for choosing, as [Ronald] Reagan put it, where there was a battle over amnesty. And some chose, like Sen.[Marco] Rubio, to stand with Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer and support a massive amnesty plan. — Ted Cruz

The conservative revolution that Reagan helped usher in gained traction because Reagan's central insight - that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing the pie - contained a good deal of truth. — Barack Obama

Ronald Reagan said, 'Trust, but verify.' President Obama is 'trust, but vilify.' He trusts our enemies and vilifies everyone who disagrees with him. — Mike Huckabee