Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am a big Boston Red Sox fan, and one of the most famous players in Red Sox recent history is Manny Ramirez. Manny Ramirez was a good baseball player, but he had a habit of doing some pretty ridiculous things on the field and off the field that were really detrimental to the team, some really bizarre on-field behavior-- cutting off throws from other outfielders before they got to the infield--and bizarre off-the-field behavior. It disrupted the team. It became so regular that a phrase was adopted amongst the Red Sox fans: ``That is just Manny being Manny.'' And over the years, it just was accepted that every year, Manny Ramirez was going to do a whole bunch of stuff that was really detrimental to the team, and over time, it just kind of became accepted that that was a fact of life, a way of life with Manny Ramirez. As time went on, people reacted with less hostility. It barely got noticed in some cases when he was engaged in these detrimental forms of conduct. I tell that story because it stands for kind of a universal concept. When bad behavior gets normalized, it no longer feels like bad behavior even if that behavior is hurting people. Today, the world is littered with corrupt governments, governments where the leaders and the really rich men who surround the leaders--the oligarchs--they steal from people. That is what they do. The leaders and the leaders' friends just keep a hand constantly in the government treasury, and they steal taxpayer dollars.…”