776 Stupidest Things Ever Said (3 page)
Read 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Online
Authors: Ross Petras
Samuel Warren, lawyer and author, in his 1841 popular novel,
Ten Thousand a Year
We may be finding that in some blacks when [the carotid choke hold] is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up like … in normal people.
Daryl Gates, Los Angeles police chief, discussing a department investigation he said he had instituted in an effort to explain why a high percentage of blacks died as a result of police officers’ using the choke hold on them
I’m not against the blacks and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that.
Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona
I can’t get over saying “colored.” I said it all my life. All the Negroes seem to resent it and I don’t know why.
Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell
I forgot no one was working. Everyone had Buckwheat’s birthday off.
town commissioner of Mardela Springs, Maryland, commenting on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and the difficulty he had getting in touch with county employees
Booker T. Washington, the great black nigger … uh … educator … uh … excuse me for making that … the great black educator … the Negro educator.
Reagan Brown, Texas agriculture commissioner, addressing agriculture professors and attempting to refer to the accomplishments of Booker T. Washington
This country needs a spear chucker, and I think we’ve got him up on this podium.
Eugene Dorff, mayor of Kenosha, Wisconsin, introducing presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. He said later he had intended to say “straight shooter,” but slipped.
[That report was] … a wholly garbled version of what never took place.
Augustine Birrel, Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916, whose inability to stop the plotting that led to the Easter Rebellion forced him to retire
This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.
Ron Ziegler, press secretary to President Richard Nixon
I never said I had no idea about most of the things you said I said I had no idea about.
Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State, clarifying himself before a 1987 congressional hearing
That was consciously ambiguous in the sense that any terrorist government or terrorist movement that is contemplating such actions I think knows clearly what we are speaking of.
Alexander Haig, then Secretary of State, when asked by a reporter to make a statement clearer
I stand by all the misstatements.
Dan Quayle, then vice-presidential candidate, defending himself against criticism for making verbal gaffes
John Sununu (then governor of New Hampshire):
You’re telling us that the reason things are so bad is that they are so good, and they will get better as soon as they get worse?
James A. Baker (then Secretary of the Treasury):
You got it.
The Gang of Four (and Lin Piao) were using an ultra-Left stance as a cover for a factional attempt to seize power. If the Gang of Four are incorrectly labeled leftists or ultra-“leftists,” this broadens the attack to include anyone who made honest “Left” errors. This would play into the hands of the Right in a situation where an evaluation of the positive and negative results of the Cultural Revolution could present an opportunity for rightist attacks on the real positive breakthroughs that have occurred. This is the significance of the correct evaluation of the Gang of Four that has been made—that they were, in essence, ultra-rightists and not leftists.
Pat and Roger Howard, from the Institute of Foreign Languages, Canton, China, in a 1977 issue of the Maoist newspaper, the
Guardian
An agency subject to the provisions of the Federal Reports Act may enter into an arrangement with an organization not subject to the Act whereby the organization not subject to the Act collects information on behalf of the agency subject to the Act. The reverse also occurs.
a memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
We offer the party as a big tent. How we do that within the platform, the preamble to the platform, or whatnot, that remains to be seen. But that message will have to be articulated with great clarity.
Vice-President Dan Quayle. (This comment was awarded the British Golden Bull award.)
I will not be cohorsed.
Danny Ozark, responding to rumors that he would be forced to quit due to reports that he was close to losing his job as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies
We on this side of the House are not such fools as we look.
House member overheard retorting to taunts
Our comedies are not to be laughed at.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
[The Soviet Union is using] every device of propaganda in an effort to hinder the rebuilding of America’s defenses and force a hasty resumption of arms negotiations.
Eugene Rostow, director of the U. S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in the Philadelphia Inquirer
The communication and exchange of ideas on administrative policy matters is encouraged and maintained to optimize the use, mix and cost and administrative inputs in program results.
Treasury Board of Canada memo
Where fraternities are not allowed, Communism flourishes.
Barry Goldwater, senator from Arizona, speaking before the National In-terfraternity Conference
In every country the Communists have taken over, the first thing they do is outlaw cockfighting.
John Monks, Oklahoma state representative, arguing against a bill that would make cockfighting illegal in the state
I did not want to tire the population, because otherwise it would have stayed up too late.
Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanian dictator, explaining why television viewing was restricted to only two hours a night. He neglected to add that electricity was usually cut off during night hours due to his own economic mismanagement.
Gerald Ford was a Communist.
Ronald Reagan in a speech. He later indicated he meant to say “Congressman.”
Elderly woman (on a hot day in St. Petersburg, Florida):
Good afternoon, Mr. Berra. My, you look mighty cool today.
Yogi Berra:
Thank you, ma’am. You don’t look so hot yourself.
In The Ironic German, Thomas Mann is the subject of the first comprehensive critical study to be published in this country.
a book review in a 1959
Nashville Tennessean
We don’t plan to conclude anything terribly specific in 1982 because of the program’s abstract nature.
a National Institute for Education contract officer, commenting in The Washington Monthly on a program commissioned by HEW
[I support efforts] to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate.
Vice-President Dan Quayle
… only a white girl, prefer Floridians.
Rep. James A. Haley (D-Fla.)
… white Republican.
Rep. Vernon Thompson (R-Wis.)
… white—no pantsuits.
Rep. James J. Delaney (D-N. Y.)
… attractive, smart, young, and no Catholics and water signs.
Rep. Bob Eckhardt (D-Texas)
from the files of the Office of Placement and Office Management, 1974; as compiled in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1974
Let me tell you that tolerance is one thing, intolerance another. To be a person intolerant of another person’s right to have different views is my idea of tolerance, that is, until that person endeavors to make a public issue of his views.
Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington, chairman of the House Committee on Immigration
We need to take a look at it and maybe from time to time we should curtail some of those rights.
LeRoy Martin, Chicago police superintendent
Honest businessmen should be protected from the unscrupulous consumer.
Lester Maddox, then governor of Georgia, on why Georgia should not create a consumer protection agency
Why should Irishmen stand with their arms folded and their hands in their pockets when England called for aid?
Sir Thomas Myles, speaking at a meeting in Dublin in 1902, about the Boer War
A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
If Governor Fields is right, I am going to stand by him because he is right. If he is wrong, I am going to stand by him because he is a Democrat.
Senator Augustus Owsley Stanley (D-Ken.) during the 1920s
Young people, do not be led astray by the theory of voting for the man and not for the party. Vote the straight Republican ticket regardless of the qualifications of the candidate for office.
C. J. Travis, Supreme Court of Indiana in the 1920s
The female teachers were instructed in cooking. They had, in fact, to go through the process of cooking themselves in turn.
in the annual report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland
Avoid saying “hello.” This elsewhere pleasant and familiar greeting is out of place in the world of business.
instructions of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company to New York employees
I want to gain 1,500 or 2,000 yards, whichever comes first.
George Rogers, New Orleans Saints running back
The interests of the employers and the employed are the same nine times out of ten—I will even say ninety-nine times out of ten.
Lord Curzon, British statesman and Viceroy of India from 1898 to 1905, Oxford University Chancellor, Foreign Secretary from 1919 to 1924
The word is not
covert
, it’s
overt
. Covert means you’re out in the open. Overt is what I did. [Which means] I was under cover.
Chic Hecht, Nevada senator, talking about his eighteen years of participation in covert operations as an army intelligence officer
No one in the White House staff, no one in this administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident…. What really hurts in matters of this sort is not the fact that they occur, because overzealous people in campaigns do things that are wrong. What really hurts is if you try to cover it up.
President Richard Nixon, at the beginning of the Watergate affair
That is, because of, because of our, that is, we are attempting, the position is to withhold information and to cover up—this is totally true—you could say it is totally untrue.
President Richard Nixon, from 1973 White House transcripts, discussing whether or not to hide evidence concerning the Watergate break-in
A cow may be drained dry; and if the Chancellors of the Exchequer persist in meeting every deficiency that occurs by taxing the brewing and distilling industries, they will inevitably kill the cow that lays the golden milk.
Sir Frederick Milner, British Member of Parliament, c. 1900
The best way to pass a cow on the road when cycling is to keep behind it.
R. J. Mecredy, writer and publisher of cycling magazines in a column offering advice on country bicycling to novices
We must have a nation of all-Americans. We must expel those who cannot recite the Constitution of the United States and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
ex-Iowa Governor William Harding
If crime went down 100%, it would still be fifty times higher than it should be.
Councilman John Bowman commenting on the high crime in Washington, D.C.
The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it’s only the people who make them unsafe.
