The top 10 political quotes of 2012.
10) “This was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. . . . It was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video.”
– Ambassador Susan Rice incorrectly blaming an anti-Islam video for inciting an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September.
9) "President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob."
– Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum in February.
8) “How they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years?”
– Vice President Joe Biden in October, trying to criticize Republicans while inadvertently admitting that the middle class suffered through the Obama-Biden administration’s entire first four-year term.
7) “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
– President Barack Obama in July.
6) "We went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ and they brought us whole binders full of women."
– Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in an October debate with Obama.
5) "You hit a reset button for the fall campaign; everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
– Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom in March explaining how the candidate could change his image after winning the Republican nomination.
4) “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”
– Obama to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in March, unknowingly recorded on an open microphone.
3) “What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”
– Rush Limbaugh on Sandra Fluke’s advocacy for free contraception.
2) "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
– Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri in August.
1) “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. . . . My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
– Romney at a secretly taped Florida fundraiser in May.