Presidential truths, zingers, bloopers, and misstatements

by Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor 
illustrations edited by Jack Brummet

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
- Dan Quayle

"I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again."
 - Bill Clinton

"Look, when I was a kid, I inhaled frequently. That was the point."
- Barack Obama

I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.
- Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952

"Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening."
–Bill Clinton

"I am convinced that UFOs exist, because I have seen one." (1976)
- Jimmy Carter

"Half the time, when I see the evening news, I wouldn't be for me either." (1995)
- Bill Clinton

"There are only so many lies you can take, and now there has been one too many. Nixon should get his ass out of the White House today." [in 1974, after some of the more damaging revelations implicating Nixon in Watergate emerged]
- Barry Goldwater (who didn't like Nixon in the first place)

"I'm the only President you've got." (1964)
- LBJ

“Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.”
- LBJ

"Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, then outside pissing in." [re: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover]
- LBJ

"So dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time." [re: Gerald Ford]
- LBJ

"I don't mind not being President. I just mind that someone else is." (1986)
- Teddy Kennedy

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I wouldn't want to wake up next to a lady pipefitter." (1971 - quoted in Ms. magazine)
- Richard Nixon

"I don't give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall--plead the Fifth Amendment, cover-up, or anything else. If that will save it, save the plan." (1973 - to his subordinates in the White House during Watergate)
- Richard Nixon

"People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook." (1973 - to the press during Watergate)
- Richard Nixon

"Well, I screwed up real good, didn't I?" (1974 - to Al Haig just before writing his resignation speech)
- Richard Nixon

"When the president does it, that means it is not illegal. But I brought myself down. I gave them a sword and they stuck it in and twisted it with relish. And I guess that if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing." (1977)
-Richard Nixon

"When I first came to Washington, for the first six months I wondered how the hell I ever got here. For the next six months, I wondered how the hell the rest of them ever got here." (1940)
- Harry S. Truman

"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." (1984 - testing a microphone before a radio broadcast)
- Ronald Reagan

"After seeing the movie Rambo, I'll know what to do the next time something like this happens." (1985 - referring to the TWA hostage crisis)
- Ronald Reagan

"I've often wondered, what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer--a power from outer space, from another planet?" (1988)
- Ronald Reagan

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
- Dan Quayle

"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
- Dan Quayle

“Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." [during a September 6, 2004 speech in Poplar Bluff, Missouri]
- George W. Bush

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