“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

This is a really interesting way of looking at it that I never though of before. Normally, people are afraid of change, because they’re afraid of things going bad. But when things are already bad, people are more open to it. Bush used this in 2003 to start the Iraq war*. Maybe Obama can use it for something more constructive.

*Note: I do not believe that Bush had any ill intentions in starting the war in Iraq, but I do believe he took advantage of the situation to bypass sanity checks and get done what he felt was right. When a person does something like this, they are deserving of any praise they get for being a visionary, but equally deserving of any criticism they get for being a reckless idiot.