Village Idiots

Completely backwards: "The thing that's dragging down the economy is the government is shrinking so rapidly that it's pulling the overall growth rate to 2.8 percent." --White House adviser Austan Goolsbee

"Mistakes"? "Obviously I think if the question is referring to things like Fast and Furious, I think everyone has acknowledged that mistakes, serious mistakes, were made there. The key question [is] to make sure that those mistakes, from my standpoint, are never again repeated." --Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on the biggest scandal in years

"The Obama administration has undertaken the most serious and sustained actions to secure our borders in our nation's history. And it is clear from every measure we currently have that this approach is working." --Janet Napolitano

Faulty memory: "[I] don't remember anything coming from the Democratic Party about George W. Bush being equated to a terrorist or George W. Bush being equated to somebody who's been accused of manslaughter. I don't remember anybody questioning, you know, some of the things about George W. Bush that have been questioned about the president. I don't remember an opposing governor wagging his or her finger in president George W. Bush's face. I mean, the truth is, is that the Republican Party starts from a core of extreme positions and it seems that that leads to extreme rhetoric when things don't seem to be work out for them with the voters." --DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse

Left-theology: "There is also a negative underside to that history with respect to slavery, manifest destiny, to war, you know, to empires, so I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying. But it does raise the practical question, what does bind us together in some way as a country? We need some substitute for that and I don't think we've found it yet." --Obama's former "faith adviser" Shaun Casey