Ari Fleischer Quotations

The greatest threat to the security of the people of North Korea comes from the government of North Korea.

The reason Gov. Romney passed Romneycare as governor of Massachusetts in 2006 was because many Republicans viewed health care reform, mandates and all, as a way to inoculate against Democratic charges that Republicans didn't care about people who lacked health insurance.

Everyone now has a sacred cow in the tax code. For my money, the most sacred thing of all is our country and its growth, but the sacred cows have turned into a pack of wolves.

But instead, Democrats are so bent on seeing Republicans as a bunch of angry, right wing, intolerant, unreliable extremists that they have a track record of missing the mood of the country, especially the sentiment of people who don't wake up to 'The New York Times.'

Most of the State of the Union will not be about Iraq. Most of the State of the Union will be about improving America's economy and providing greater access to health care for millions of American people, including senior citizens

There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest

I don't expect the press to say thank you for the efforts that I make.

The president typically never does comment on anything involving the Supreme Court cases, Supreme Court ruling, or Supreme Court finding, typically.

A safety net for the poor indeed requires some level of income redistribution.

Because what I say from that podium has got to be accurate, and I'm the only one who's going to be held liable if it's not accurate.

If Mr. Obama wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only the president has the power to make the first big move.

After two years of fighting, government shutdowns and little to no agreement on anything except welfare reform in 1996, President Clinton was re-elected and decided it was time for compromise.

The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform.

I favor the abolition of all Social Security, Medicare and estate taxes. In their place, we should create a simple income tax system that has no deductions or credits at all.

Today, grass-roots Republicans want to drink a bottle of 2010 small-government wine, but our candidates were bottled in another era, before the tea party's ideas took root.

Make no mistake, if the payroll-tax cut is extended, it will become permanent. Social Security will become another welfare program as the tie between what someone pays and what they receive gets broken.

Anytime James Carville, Paul Begala and David Axelrod hold hands and jump for joy, it's worth pondering how to turn their joy into tears.

The 2000s were marked by terrorism and a bipartisan desire to fight it.

Contrary to the myth that Mr. Bush cut taxes only for the wealthy, the 2001 tax cut reduced taxes for every income-tax payer in the country.

I get a kick out of Democrats thinking they know how handicap a GOP race.

If Democrats were good at thinking like Republicans, they would see the light and stop being Democrats.

The president welcomes peaceful protests - it is a time-honored tradition. The president agrees violence is not the answer in Iraq, and that's why he hopes Saddam Hussein will disarm.

It's time to create an Economic Growth Code whose purpose is to fix and grow the economy, not redistribute massive amounts of wealth.

To avoid a military conflict, Saddam Hussein has no other choice than to leave the country.

When President George W. Bush cut taxes, he cut them for everyone.

Having served as the majority spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee after Republicans took the House in 1994, I've seen the promise and the peril of divided government before.

I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are.

...President [Bush] believes that [high-energy consumption] is an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.

The press secretary who starts to narrow down or close the president's options because he answers delicate negotiating questions no longer serves the president.

The reason the world is in the spot it's in is because North Korea entered into an agreement and then did not keep up their terms of the agreement. They received aid in return for promising not to develop nuclear weapons. They took the aid, they ran with the aid and then they developed a nuclear weapons anyway.

School choice is one of the strongest ways we have to educate our children, .. believes in school choice and he is going to work hard to enact school choice.

Why then would people look to the United Nations as an instrument of peace, if instead all it is, is an instrument of putting out declarations that nobody intends to take seriously anyway?

One of the reasons people love sports is because it's non-political. And to the degree that Donald Trump puts sports organizations like golf tournaments in difficult positions, they won't want anything to do with him, i think all of this is evidence that Donald Trump is finding it a lot harder to be a candidate than he probably anticipated.

The right thing to do is to let the dust settle.

As the president has said, if the United Nations will not disarm Saddam Hussein, it will be another international organization, a coalition of the willing that will be made up of numerous nations that will disarm Saddam Hussein.

Bush to USSS: 'We need to get back to Wash. We don't need some tin horn terrorist to scare us off.'

Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice.

We believe in the fundamental strength of Israel's economy and have confidence in its long-term potential.

Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for ther own reconstruction.

We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.

We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about.

I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found.

I think it's important for the people to see the government is functioning...

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again...

There is something democratic about grass-roots, widespread money support. There is something anti-democratic about one person propping up a candidate who can't make it.

The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.

There are many dangerous areas of Baghdad for our armed forces that remain, there are many other cities in Iraq that are dangerous ... where armed conflict could result,

Scott had the faith and the trust of the president, and that's the most important ingredient.

Nepal is fighting a Maoist rebellion, and Nepal is an example, again, of a democracy, and the United States is committed to helping Nepal.

My advice to the tea party freshmen: Slow the galloping horses to a trot. Big government was built over decades; it can't be dismantled in a year, especially when Democrats control the White House.

Obviously, he's not ruling it out... he's saying whatever it took.

gives all parties an opportunity to seize the opportunity to emerge from the violence, to end the violence.

He had an obligation to disclose it himself, and he should have done so Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Kennebunkport has a very strong sense of family for him.

Joe is one of the president's staunchest supporters and good friends. The president is going to miss him a great deal. We're all on the staff level going to miss Joe a great deal. He's a great guy -- a real kind man, a gentle giant.

It could have and should have been handled differently.

I think time will tell. They both understand the president's message and the president's message is strongly that war doesn't serve either party.

I think those types of statements contribute to the coarsening of the tone in Washington, D.C., ... The whole issue of land use in the West is one of the most polarizing issues in America, and it pits special interests against each other.

It is at the same time the most wonderful job in the world and the most punishing.

It is a package to help Taiwan provide for its defense.

I think the reason that we know Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons is from a wide variety of means. That's how we know,

part of what, to his supporters, is steadfastness and, to his critics, is stubbornness.

I think from the president's point of view, any questions about how long it will last are, of course, are entirely legitimate questions ... The president understands people want to know, but it's also an unknowable issue. But I do think there is a difference between asking that question and the suggestion that,

It is Congress' right and prerogative to be informed and they are being informed on an ongoing, regular basis. Sometimes you have to recognize in Washington no amount of consultations is ever enough for the Hill, and I think that extends well before this administration. That's sometimes just the way the Hill works.

The American people are going to give the President a second look here in his sixth year because he?s engineering these changes. That?s helpful. He needs the country to give him a second look.

The president has said before that he is patient, the American people are patient, and he is confident that in time we will find this.

The president has full faith ... the vice president can take care of himself,

The president has confidence in Senator Santorum, both as a senator and as a member of the Senate leadership,

The president can accomplish what he wanted to accomplish at APEC.

The president believes that it's an American way of life.

The press is largely right on the issue -- but it can be right and go too far.

The president will, of course, take into account any recent developments that need to be factored into any decision he makes.

We still are in an environment where whatever they hid and whatever they concealed could remain hidden and concealed.

The president thinks this is the chance now for Yasser Arafat to demonstrate real leadership that is lasting, that is enduring, that puts people responsible for this away, and does so in such a way that they can't get out again and commit more terror. The president thinks it is very important that the Palestinian jails not only have bars on the front but no longer have revolving doors at the back.

The president thinks this is a positive. The president expressed his belief that this will increase the prospects to bring peace to the region. Israel has said it will continue withdrawals. It is. The withdrawals are continuing.

The president thinks the ICC is fundamentally flawed because it puts American servicemen and women at fundamental risk of being tried by an entity that is beyond America's reach, beyond America's laws and can subject American civilian and military to arbitrary standards of justice.

The president is going through a bad time, and it is related to policies. It's related to Iraq, and the advantage of making a change is it allows the public to take a second look at a president who has been in office six years.

The government of Libya has not yet satisfied these requirements.

We will work closely with Pakistan to try to achieve that outcome of bringing them to the U.S..

The United States doesn't understand the reasons for an apology, ... Our airplanes were operating in international air space and the United States did nothing wrong.

It would have been better if the vice president and/or his staff had come out last Saturday night or first thing Sunday morning and announced it. It could have and should have been handled differently.

Right now, this is the building block phase, the legal phase, the fund-raising phase.

Saudi Arabia has been the subject of terrorist attacks, and Saudi Arabia has worked well with us. We will always, in the long war on terrorism, work with our allies in a cooperative fashion so that we can together do more.

Reading and math scores nationally have been declining for past ten years. There's a real worry in America about whether children will be safe in school.

North Korea continues to engage in provocations and now reckless acts.

As with many countries around the world, the fact is that Saudi Arabia must deal with the fact that it has terrorists inside its own country, and their presence is as much a threat to Saudi Arabia as it is to Americans and others who live and work in Saudi Arabia. These bombs kill not just Americans, but Saudis as well.

Education is a top priority for Gov. Bush, and he has provided specific details about his plan. The American people deserve for Al Gore to do the same. Since the Gore budget overspends the surplus, it's important for him to release the specifics of his plan so we'll know what promises he will not keep once the election is over.

Suggesting that Governor Bush is as dishonest as Bill Clinton is a disservice to our party and our principles. Our nation has been through enough and John McCain's ad has gone too far.

These visits will be rescheduled when circumstances permit.

I'm not going to do any play by play of the negotiations that are underway.

I'm not aware of anybody in the White House who discussed Enron's financial situation.

If there are any growth proposals from the Democrats, the president would be very interested in hearing them.

If you allow those who are the most vocal and most antagonistic to get a meeting with the president for fear that publicity will hurt you if you don't, you're creating incentives for your critics to become even more antagonistic and more vocal. Then, you're forever stuck in: Will you or won't you meet? You'll no longer lead. You'll just wrestle with meetings.

In the second year ... a parent, a single mom, can now send their child to a public school that is in a different part of town, and they will get their transportation costs paid because the money will follow the child.

In Texas, Gov. Bush has a proven record on his ability to work in a bipartisan fashion to enact a patients' bill of rights, to increase funding and resources for education and achieve the two biggest tax cuts in the history of Texas.

high confidence that there is not an issue here.

I don't think that the people who are professionals, who make it their business to go in and prepare the White House for new arrivals, would cut wires.

The CIA will do its usual assessments. They have not had an opportunity to begin it yet, as the tape was just released.