‘What I’ve said is …’: Obama quotes self 18 times at press conference

It’s a president’s prerogative to preempt network TV programming for prime-time press conferences, and President Obama has done it twice already. But his rhetoric at last night’s event was mostly re-runs: Eighteen times, Obama cited something he’s said before. If your drinking-game phrase was “As I’ve said” or “What I’ve said is,” you’re lucky to be alive. On the other hand, if another Obama verbal tic — “That’s not just my opinion” — was your cue, you probably had a fun press conference.  From the White House transcript of President Obama’s March 23 news conference (h/t Political Animal):

Well, as I said before, if you look at how the FDIC has handled a situation like Indy Bank, for example, it actually does these kinds of resolutions effectively when it’s got the tools to do it.

What I’ve said here in Washington is that we’ve got to make some tough choices.

Well, as I said, the American people are making a host of sacrifices in their individual lives.

I’ve said that we’ve got to have a serious energy policy that frees ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy.

And I’ve said that we’ve got to start driving our deficit numbers down.

What I said was I haven’t seen yet what provisions are in there.

But I’m — look, I’m not going to lie to you, it is tough, as I said.

As I said, President Calderón has been very courageous in taking on these drug cartels.

As I’ve said, we’ve already identified potentially $40 billion in savings just by some of the procurement reforms that are pretty apparent to a lot of critics out there.

And so what we’ve said is, look, let’s invest in health information technologies.

What we said was, that over the last decade, the average worker, the average family have seen their wages and incomes flat.

And so what we said, let’s give them a tax cut, let’s give them some relief, some help — 95 percent of American families.

And what we’ve said is for those folks, let’s not renew the Bush tax cuts.

And what we’ve said is let’s go back to the rate that existed under Ronald Reagan.

I think those [scientific and ethical] issues are all critical, and I’ve said so before.

What we have said is that for embryos that are typically about to be discarded, for us to be able to use those in order to find cures for Parkinson’s or for Alzheimer’s or, you know, all sorts of other debilitating diseases — juvenile diabetes — that it is the right thing to do.

And so as I said, I don’t take decisions like this lightly.

And as I said before, my hope is, is that we can find a mechanism ultimately to cure these diseases in a way that gains 100 percent consensus.

The runner-up drinking-game phrase might have been “it’s not just my opinion” or “don’t take my word for it.”

And there is uniform acknowledgment that the procurement system right now doesn’t work.  That’s not just my opinion, that’s John McCain’s opinion; that’s Carl Levin’s opinion.

And the best way for us to do that is to reduce health care costs.  That’s not just my opinion; that’s the opinion of almost every single person who has looked at our long-term fiscal situation.

It’s not just me, by the way. I was with Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, today, who was very forceful in suggesting that countries around the world, those with the capacity to do so, take the steps that are needed to fill this enormous hole in global demand.  Gordon Brown, when he came to visit me, said the exact same thing.

And that’s not just my opinion; that is the opinion of a number of people who are also against abortion.

So you don’t have to take my word for it.  I think that there is a great deal of confidence that ultimately, although we are going through a rough patch, that the prospects for the world economy are very, very strong.

See for yourself: