Bloopers, hardballs, and just weird political quotations

"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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Our two favorite letters from George W. Bush

By Pablo Fanque (National Affairs Ed.) and Jack Brummet (Arts and Social Mores ed.)


As you may or may not remember, we (Jack and Pablo) have corresponded periodically with the Presidents (we've only had two since All This Is That started five years ago). Our letters to them ranged from out and out trolls to respectful invitations. One letter we received--that we cannot find!--came from a staffer and basically said "are you crazy? We're not giving this to The President."

But in response to some of our more, shall we say apparently positive and supportive letters?, we did hear back from The Boss himself.

Click the letters to enlarge.




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Senator Jay Bulworth raps on Money and Obscenity

From the movie, Bulworth, Senator Jay Bulworth's rap on Money and obscenity:

Obscenity? The rich is getting richer and richer and richer
While the middle class is getting more poor
Making billions and billions and billions of bucks
Well my friend if you weren't already rich at the start
Well that situation just sucks
Cause the richest motherf****r in five of us
Is getting ninety f***in' eight percent of it
And every other motherf****r in the world is left to wonder
Where the f*** we went with it
Obscenity? I'm a Senator
I gotta raise $10,000 a day every day I'm in Washington
I ain't getting it in South Central
I'm gettin it in Beverly Hills
So I'm votin for them in the Senate the way they want me too
And-and-and I'm sending them my bills
But we got babies in South Central dying as young as they do in Peru
We got public schools that are nightmares
We got a Congress that ain't got a clue
We got kids with submachine guns
We got militias throwing bombs
We got Bill just gettin all weepy
We got Newt blaming teenage moms
We got factories closing down
Where the hell did all the good jobs go?
Well, I'll tell you where they went
My contributors make more profits makin, makin, makin,
Hirin' kids in Mexico
And a brother can work in fast food
If he can't invent computer games
But what we used to call America
That's going down the drains
How's a young man gonna meet his financial responsibilities
Workin for motherf****n' Burger King?
He ain't! And please don't even start with that school s**t
There aint no education going on up in that motherfucker
Obscenity? We got a million brothers in prison
I mean, the walls are really rockin'
But you can bet your ass they'd all be out
If they could pay for Johnny Cochran
The constitution is supposed to give them an equal chance
Well, that ain't gonna happen for sure
Ain't it time to take a little from the rich motherf****r
And give a little to the poor?
I mean, those boys over there on the monitor
They want a government smaller and weak
But they be speakin for the richest 20 percent
When they pretend they're defendin' the meek
Now, sh*t, f**k, c***sucker, that's the real obscenity
Black folks livin with every day
Trying to believe a mothe****in' word Democrats and Republicans say
Obscenity? I'm Jay Billington Bulworth And I've come to say
The Democratic party's got some s**t to pay
It's gonna pay it in the ghetto
It's gonna pay it in the ghetto.
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Newsweek looks into what makes Rudy Rudy

If you're a regular reader, you know we think The Mayor of 9/11, Rudolph Giuliani, is not specifically the best choice for President of the United States of America. Far from it. From the Republican column, we would even give the nod to that dingbat Dennis Kucinich, or the plodding but charming Fred Thompson (bonus: knockout first lady) before we'd give the nod to Rudy. If I was a Republican I'd probably vote for Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney. Note: I've only voted for two republicans in my entire life, and I'd be glad to do it again if they could just quit sounding like, well, Nazis, toothless hillbillies, imbeciles, reactionary toads , whores to the establishment, Republicans.

Giuliani unquestionably has done some good in his life. He completely turned around the town I lived in for five years (NYC), and as a federal prosecutor, he broke the strangle-hold of the mob on NYC and elsewhere. But then there were other problems, with his trigger-happy police, who seemed to feel like they had a standing shoot to kill order on anyone who breached the peace, or with his personal life where he felt no compunction about housing his girlfriend and wife and children in Gracey Mansion at the same time. And then, at his nadir in public opinion as he was about to leave office, 9/11 happened, and he walked around with a hardhat and megaphone issuing sound bites to a ravenous press, and he was suddenly transmogrified into an expert on Islam, terrorism, and national security. The policemen and women and the firefighters do not agree. And neither apparently do many other people. Under this logic, I should probably be the police commissioner of New York City, since I was mugged three times while I lived there.

In their December 3 issue, Newsweek publishes a fascinating article on just what made Rudy Rudy:

"On Sept. 16, 1992, the police in New York City held a rally that spun out of control. The cops wanted a new collective-bargaining agreement, and they were angry at Mayor David Dinkins for proposing a civilian review board and for refusing to issue patrolmen 9mm guns. More than a few of them tipsy or drunk, the cops jumped on cars near city hall and blocked traffic near the Brooklyn Bridge. According to some witnesses, they waved placards crudely mocking Mayor Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York, on racial grounds, while at the same time chanting "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!" to welcome Rudy Giuliani, the crime-busting former U.S. attorney who had arrived in their midst to shore up his political base.

"It is not clear Giuliani knew exactly what he was getting himself into—he later denied that he did—but video shows him wildly gesticulating and shouting a profanity-laced diatribe against Dinkins. The next day the New York newspapers were sharply critical of Giuliani (a Daily News editorial called his behavior "shameful"), and Dinkins, years later, accused him of trying to stir up "white cops to riot." At the time, Giuliani refused to back down or apologize for his remarks, saying only: "I had four uncles who were cops. So maybe I was more emotional than I usually am." Giuliani's performance that day lost African-American voters, some permanently, but it guaranteed the informal backing of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the policemen's union, which helped him get elected mayor in 1993."

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Painting: Ike, President for 8 months when I was born

Click Dwight David Eisenhower to enlarge

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Painting: Lanky Link, a/k/a President Abraham Lincoln

click Link to enlarge

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Gingrich: 80/20 The Dems will win

According to an interview Newt Gingrich had with the National Journal, the Republican's goose is cooked. Read the full article in the National Journal here.

Q: You said fairly recently that the Democrats had a very high likelihood of winning the presidency next year.

Gingrich: I think that the country, after the last couple of years, has a bias in favor of change -- I think probably starting with [Hurricane] Katrina and coming through Baghdad and the whole sense of too much spending. And you sense a lack of enthusiasm in the conservative base, and you sense a stunning level of intensity in the anti-war Left. And so you just look at the dynamics and you have to say the odds are probably 80-20 [in the Democrats' favor].
Q: 80-20?

Gingrich: Yeah. That's my guess. Now, it could change. If you had a [Republican] candidate who could break out and who could say, "Obviously, we need to change pretty dramatically, and the party of trial lawyers, public employee unions, [and] left-wing ideologues probably can't change,"


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Giuliani warns of a "new 9/11' if Democrats take the White House

Republican presidential wannabe, the Mayor of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani responded yesterday to a question at a campaign stop in Henniker, New Hampshire, saying that if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for a terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

If a Republican is elected, however, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president—and I think obviously I would be the best at this—we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

Yet. . .yet. . .who WAS in charge on 9/11? As we've asked before, how does being the mayor of a city that was attacked give you credentials for preventing anything at all? I think what we did see is that Giuliani is capable of multiple photo-ops and press conferences, none of which—as far as I know—actually prevents anything.

Recent articles on Rudolph Giuliani in All This Is That:

Running on empty—Send in the clowns—Announced, probable, and possible candidates for President of the United States
Giuliani: The Candidate For 9/11—See The Onion
Republicans tied to the whipping post
Giuliani son: "I have problems with my father, but it doesn't mean he won't make a great President."
Rudy Backs Off
Photomontage: Presidential Contenders And Wild Cards
Front-runners Clinton and McCain losing ground fast/All This Is That's dark horses are mired in the back of the pack
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G.O.P. in league with Taliban and Al Qaeda?

click photo to enlarge

A New York man sometimes called Michael Mixon, and also known as Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, is accused of trying to help terrorists in Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press. Over the last several years he has donated $15,000 to the House Republicans' campaign committee.

From 2002 into 2004, Michael Mixon gave donations ranging from $500 to $5,000 to the Republican Congressional Committee. At the same time, Mixon a/k/a Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari accepted money to transfer $152,000 to Pakistan and Afghanistan to support an Afghanistan terrorist training camp.

Does this mean that the Republican Party are in league with terrorists? I'm not sure, but let's make them deny it! After all, in April, 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Bush's Iraq War had become the "cause celebre" that helped spread and germinate Islamic extremism around the globe.
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