Rahm Emanuel Quotations

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.

The person who takes the oath of office in the next four months will shape not just the next four years, but the next forty years of our nation. In these next four years, we need proven leadership, proven judgment and proven values. America needs four more years of President Barack Obama.

We have work to do, and Tuesday Americans sent Washington a clear message - get the job done.

While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection, I have never been surprised by his leadership, dedication and tireless work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago.

We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.

I wake up some mornings hating me too.

I still believe the Lewinsky investigation was way off from the focus of what Whitewater was, which turned out to be nothing at the end of the process. And I think that there were people who were determined as political opponents to not allow his presidency to succeed.

President Obama made the right choice, over one 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.'

A strong economy depends on a strong middle class, but George Bush has put the middle class in a hole, and John McCain has a plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush's shovel.

As individuals, we will be judged in our lives by the totality of our actions. Not one thing will stand out. And I think that's how we get judged by our colleagues and that's how we get judged by the good lord.

When President Obama entered the White House, the economy was in a free-fall. The auto industry: on its back. The banks: frozen up. More than three million Americans had already lost their jobs. And America's bravest, our men and women in uniform, were fighting what would soon be the longest wars in our history.

There was no blueprint or how-to manual for fixing a global financial meltdown, an auto crisis, two wars and a great recession, all at the same time.

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

The American people... want change. They want big ideas, big reform.

I saw the president make the tough calls in the Situation Room - and today, our troops in Iraq have finally come home so America can do some nation building here at home. That was the change that we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.

In the White House, you can be on the pitcher's mound or you can be in the catcher's position. Put points on the board. Show people you can govern. Deliver on what you said you were going to deliver on.

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 don't want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn't pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country.

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?

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

Things happened there that I don't think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.

I sometimes joke, Paula, even paranoid people have enemies.

I would like to run for the mayor of the city of Chicago. That has always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives.

I've never been in a place where winning has hurt the ability to do anything.

Everybody knows they're on the Obama team: There isn't vice presidential vs. presidential division, there's not a generational pull. People have internalized that this is a real moment in history.

I believe the record I was allowed to help establish by the side of the president was important.

The fact is, Bush's war policy has failed. It's failed! Who better to say so than Jack Murtha?

There's no safe Republican district. You can run, but you cannot hide.

When people told me 'It's great to be here', they meant at the house, not with me.

Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There's a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn't exist.

Today, because of President Obama's courage, kids can stay on their parent's plan until they are 26. Insurers cannot kick you off your policy because you have hit your limit. They will not be able to deny you because you have a pre-existing condition.

When it comes to federal elections law, Tom DeLay and his special-interest friends live by one set of rules, and everyone else lives by a very different set.

We're getting at best an impressionistic sense of what's going on in the economy. Major policy decisions are being made based on data that is inadequate to the task.

When the Speaker's gavel comes down, it's intended to open the People's House, and lately it's looking like the Auction House, ... Whether it's an energy bill that gives more $8 billion to the oil and gas interests while oil's at $64 a barrel, whether it's a corporate tax bill solving a $5 billion problem with a $150 billion solution, whether it's a pharmaceutical, prescription drug bill where the industry gave $132 million and walked away with $135 billion in additional profits.

If they think they can go forward as if nothing's changed, they do not understand what the rest of America has witnessed over the past week.

He has to get off his mountain bike and back to work.

Here in Illinois it's known as Kid Care, and I talked about expanding it to family care. So if you work full- time, you get health care.

I think there's a lot of anger and we're gaining because of that. We could blow it. They can gain ground they've lost, but there's a big shift going on.

Our voters, going into the midterm elections, are mobilized and energized; theirs are despondent, ... Virginia is a bright, bright red state - shining red.

Will the division have an effect on the election of 2006? We'll know that pretty quickly.

We're at the very beginning stages of this, not at the end,

We've come to this historical opportunity and this historical time to get a balanced budget and a targeted tax cut, ... Fox News Sunday.

The president wants to get the information that the grand jury needs,

the president wanted an open and honest discussion .... the full transcript will be made available.

Both Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter got elected because they were comfortable with their faith, which enabled them to reach voters of faith.

At the very time our country yearns for national unity in the wake of hurricane Katrina, these comments reflect a spirit of hate and division.

There's no safe district. You can run but you can't hide.

The schedule speaks volumes -- he's persona non grata around the country, ... Challengers and incumbents can't be seen with him. But at the Capitol, he's a powerful force. This Congress is his domain. The interests he supports continue to reign.

This is not a mystery anymore. We know what needs to be done, ... The Great Lakes has gotten nine studies in four years from this administration, and Iraq has gotten $4.5 billion. Give Iraq the studies, and we'll take the money.

They ended up spending a total, their campaign plus the independent, about 1.3 million. I only ended up spending about -- not only, but I spent about 2 million. But I had no intention of doing that until I was attacked with a negative ad by an independent group.

Instead of a State of the Union address, the president kicked off his re-election campaign. His speech was long on rhetoric and short on resources.

You could make progress on this in a New York minute, ... We're getting very close here.

All the chemistry for a big election is beginning to take shape.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values

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

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.

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

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

You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

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.

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