Ex-Presidents

Updated February 12, 2010

"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."

--BILL CLINTON

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American."

--JIMMY CARTER

"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."

"And you got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever..."

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

--BILL CLINTON

"First, I'm not undermining anything (the Bush administration). And secondly, I'm not negotiating (with Hamas). I have no role to play as a mediator or a negotiator. I'm just here representing myself and the Carter Center, no one else, with no authority at all. I don't want any authority. And my decision was just to talk to people who must be involved in the final peace agreement, who are excluded at this point from any discussions leading to a peace agreement."

"[Dick Cheney is] a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world. You know he's been a disaster for our country."

"I was amazed and almost nauseated to see the encroachment of Israel on Palestinian rights and the persecution that is taking place."

"An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid."

(Describing Tony Blair's attitude to President George W. Bush) "Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient. I think that the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world."

"Every president wants to have complete control over their foreign policy, but I think in the long run [Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria is] helpful."

"[F]or the only time in my life, as a former president, I was ordered by the White House not to go [to Syria]."

"I have always been a promoter of global peace. When I was the US president I never had to talk of nuclear bombs or missiles. I worked between other nations for peace and human rights."

"I think, as far as North Korea is concerned, they would be willing [to negotiate]. But I don't think there is a chance in the world that the U.S. government would approve [for me], or someone else, to go negotiate with North Korea."

"A major impediment to progress [in the Middle East] is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions."

"I hope that support for the new government [Hamas] will be forthcoming."

"I have been surprised and extremely disappointed by Tony Blair's behavior.

"I think that more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington - and he has not. I really thought that Tony Blair ... would be a constraint on President Bush's policy toward Iraq."

"A lot of Democrats know that [Al Gore] was elected in 2000 and should have been president."

--JIMMY CARTER