Ari Fleischer Quotes

Getting members of Congress to do things they don’t want to do is a crucial part of being President.

A man who understands the power of the Presidency, who understands the potential of the Presidency, can get almost anything accomplished.

Getting one bill passed is close to impossible. Ask any kid who has spent a summer in Washington, or better yet a semester, and can't understand how people tolerate its menu of constant frustration. Imagine mastering it.

While I have worked hard to bring folks to the middle to craft common-sense solutions to the many problems that confront our nation, Washington is mired in gridlock, gamesmanship and constant partisan bickering.

Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything - it can stop the Vietnam War, it can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.

We saw what happened in Jimmy Carter's administration. President Carter was a good man with the best of intentions. But he came to Washington without a good working relationship with Democratic members of Congress, which played a big part in his administration's problems.

We've been sitting at the compromise table for a long time. We're just waiting for that cold chair to be warmed up by the Republican leadership. They still have time to do the right thing and be responsible. They just seem to be moving further and further away from it.

At the start of his second term, one wonders less about Obama's fitness than his willingness: Why doesn't he do more to build and maintain the relationships required to govern in era of polarization?

Generally, the president's power and capital is used to close a deal and not always to negotiate bit by bit.

A president in his first year has a mandate and some political capital. When he picks an issue, he can practically roll any Congress.

Mr. Roosevelt, when you are in Washington as long as I have been, you will learn that the President of the United States calls on nobody.

Presidents are evaluated not by what they did by the stroke of their own pen; it's what they persuade Congress to do.

You'll never get progress in Washington until you have a majority, bipartisan majority, that really wants to solve problems.

There has been so much power concentrated. There is no leash on that power anymore and Americans face the situation that this power is getting momentum with each passing year with each presidency.

Obama is a tyrant the same way FDR was a tyrant. He has a view of presidential power that states: the government is in control of the country, and the president is in charge of the government. He's taken an imperial view of the presidency.

The great power the president has is that he is the most prominent person in the biggest media event on the planet. He has the attention of the nation and the world. When he speaks, everybody listens.

I am convinced that I do not want to give up more power to the White House, whether it's George Bush or Barack Obama. And I'm going to fight as hard as I can against President Obama on these earmarks and my Republican colleagues who hate to vote for them, but love to get them.

President Obama thinks he can use emotion to bring pressure on Congress. But that's not how adults with power respond to things.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

Clinton knew how to get things done. He was battling the Republicans, and then he basically took a lot of their agenda and made it his own. That's what Obama's not doing.

One of the tragedies of the Bush administration is that we went back to business as usual, make a deal with the Democrats, let's all be friends in Washington philosophy.

A concrete agenda and landslide victory might not even guarantee a president his mandate in a capital as polarized as Washington.

Of all presidential perks, the pardon power has a special significance. It is just the kind of authority that would attract the special attention of someone obsessed with himself and his own ability to influence events.

One of the things I give Nancy Pelosi a lot of credit for is that she's able to get things passed and hold her members together because she shows us that she's doing everything possible to get our views into these bills.

There are only two powers that matter in the bureaucracy of Washington: The power to say ‘Here’s your money,” and the power to say “You’re fired!”