Marcus Samuelsson Quotes
I stand behind everything I've done.
Samuelsson, Marcus. Yes, Chef: A Memoir. Random House, 2012.
This is an example of a totally absurd intellectual position that the dynamics of a modern political campaign into which candidate can by pushed. In his primary campaign for the nomination, Romney had been castigated by other Republicans for changing his political positions to suite the conservative wing of the party. He was labeled a “flip-flopper with no consistent views principles. In this quotation, he had distanced himself from a campaign plan created by a rich Republican that would attack President Obama for the fact that before the Presidency, he had attended a church with a radical pastor. The plan was to tie Obama to the radical views of the pastor, despite the fact that Obama himself had castigated the views of the pastor. A reporter tried to remind Romney that months before, he had appeared on a TV show and himself said that Obama was not a good President because he had attended the church of the radical pastor. The reporter specifically asked Romney if he still stood by what he had said on the radio in the light of his current position which was the opposite, Romney had changed his mind. However, even though he could not remember what he had even said, and fearful that he would be again accused of being a flip-flopper, he felt it was necessary for him to tell the reporter and the public that whatever he had said, he stood by it. There are few fields or situations where any intelligent human being would take the position that whatever he/she had said in the past, was still their current view. However politics is often the exception and this quotation illustrates that.
The President’s State of the Union Message had contained invalid claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa. The press was attempting to determine who put the information into the draft of the President’s speech.
Marcus Samuelsson is an Ethiopian Swedish chef and restaurateur. He is the head chef of Red Rooster in Harlem, New York.
