Top 10 Unfortunate Political One-Liners

Top 10 Unfortunate Political One-Liners

"I'm not a crook"
-1973 Richard Nixon
On November 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon infamously denied any involvement in the Watergate scandal with his now timeless defense. Thing is, he was.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
-1998 Bill Clinton
With those words, President Clinton didn't just dig himself a hole, he stole a backhoe, dug a really deep hole, drove the backhoe into the hole, wired the backhoe with explosives and blew it up.

"Read my lips: no new taxes"
-1988 George H.W. Bush
It was a strong, decisive, bold statement, and you don't need a history degree to see where this is going. As presidents sometimes must, Bush raised taxes. His words were used against him by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in a devastating attack ad during the 1992 presidential campaign.

"The fundamentals of the economy are strong"
-2008 John McCain
Senator McCain was probably trying to be reassuring, as Presidents ought to be in times of turmoil and stress. Yet, when investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy hours after he made this statement during the 2008 campaign, McCain looked shockingly out of touch. His opponent, Barack Obama, wasted no opportunity to repeat McCain's statement, a particularly effective attack as the economy went further and further south.

"I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."
-1976 Jimmy Carter
The decision to do an interview with Playboy magazine was possibly not the best call of President Carter's tenure. Yet, it was all going pretty well until he started talking about the Bible and adultery. Now, Carter's not actually admitting anything shocking.

"It's vile. It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."
- 1998 Mark Foley
Republican Rep. Mark Foley, having uttered this gem at the height of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, was brought down by an addiction to sexually explicit text messages to male congressional pages.

"We still seek no wider war."
-1964 Lyndon B. Johnson
While the American government claimed that North Vietnamese warships had attacked U.S. vessels in the Gulf, it later turned out to be the opposite. The Vietnam escalation followed shortly thereafter.

"That depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."
-1998 Bill Clinton
Clinton reached new depths of word-parsing during his videotaped August 17 testimony in front of a grand jury. Until then, America hadn't been sure there was more than one definition of "is." Just to be clear, there isn't.

"The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis."
-1929 Herbert Hoover
Four days later, the stock market crashed, depression followed and Hoover became a joke.

"You know, I always wondered about that taping equipment but I'm damn glad we have it, aren't you?"
-1973 Richard Nixon
President Nixon actually said this to Watergate co-conspirator H.R. Haldeman in April 1973, weeks before the U.S. Senate began its nationally televised hearings.

Source

Interesting political quotes ... post any that you may have ....

[edit on 17-11-2008 by baseball101]

Oh, I think I have a favorite:

"No Nation Building"
-President Bush's campaign slogan in 2000

haha nice one i hope i get more participants

by the way just in case no one knew it's been 25 years since richard nixon stated that famous quote...

[edit on 17-11-2008 by baseball101]

I still can't believe the Clinton what the meaning of 'is' is. Can I find this on youtube? I thought that was just a joke on family guy. I love it.

reply to post by Raustin


i'm not really sure on that one if it's on youtube prob somewhere if you google it, but yeah it's real

sad, but true

reply to post by Raustin


No, that's real. It happened when he was forced to testify over the Lewinsky scandal, I believe.

Depends on what is is?

I guess, after viewing this video, it was when a reporter asked him a question.

[edit on 17-11-2008 by Irish M1ck]

Now these these are funny yes they is is....................HA!HA!

I like them all....

If only Clinton had known how good Hillary was at blowing the presidency he wouldn't have even needed Monica.

Still, You gotta love the quote by Richard Nixon: "I'M BACK!!!"

It's been used by pundits and to scare children ever since.

Starred and flagged. Good post.

haha i got another good one ...

“A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.”
-Everett Dirksen, Congressman

you forgot the best line:

Obama: Ive been to 57 states

Originally posted by Irish M1ck
reply to post by Raustin

 

No, that's real. It happened when he was forced to testify over the Lewinsky scandal, I believe.

Depends on what is is?

I believe it was when he was giving that videotaped testimony in the Paula Jones case - you remember, the one where he went though like a six-pack of different types of soda pop.

I always thought he got a bad rap for that answer, evasive though it was. It was clear to me that he was trying to say that there "is" currently no on-going relationship, versus there "is" a relationship that can be show (perhaps!) to have existed, in the past. A fine hair-splitting, that he chose the first meaning, but a valid one, perhaps, in context of the exactitude of the questions being put to him at the time. Of course he was dodging left and right at the time, and I appreciated his performance on an aesthetic level, so that may bias my opinion.

Here are a couple I found from some of our esteemed mayors

Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest
crime rates in the country. - Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC

The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people
who make them unsafe. - Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of
Philadelphia

And we musn't forget

It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.-
Dan Quayle, Former U.S. Vice-President

[edit on 27-11-2008 by Walkswithfish]

[edit on 27-11-2008 by Walkswithfish]

[edit on 27-11-2008 by Walkswithfish]

Some more, this is fun

Wyld Bill..

"I don't think the Republicans can damage my character" -
Bill Clinton, former U.S. President

"Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave
badly around women. And I hope I never get into that." - Bill
Clinton, former U.S. president

"You know the one thing that's wrong with this country?
Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say." - Bill Clinton,
former U.S. President

Bush, I know I know, too easy..

"I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't
always agree with them." - George Bush, former U.S. President "

But yes, Even Bush can be outdone

THE ALL TIME BEST

President Bush, who was invited to speak at a symposium of minority
journalists, was asked by columnist Mark Trahant, "What do you think
tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century and how do we resolve
conflicts between tribes and the federal and state governments?"


In true Bush form, the president responded, "Tribal sovereignty
means that, it's sovereign. You're a -- you're a -- you have been
given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity."



Followed by this quote by Jesse Jackson who was responding to
reporter Brent Merrill's question,... "as you saw today at the
president's conference, the leader of the free world does not
understand tribal sovereignty. What would you do in your estimation,
Reverend, what would you do and how would you advise tribes to educate our folks, just exactly what tribal sovereignty is?


Jesse Jackson: "The President explained. You just didn't understand.
Sovereignty is sovereignty. You understand? It's like in
sovereignity. If you are on a reservation, you have been soverized.
Your Ph.D. is in soverbication. You understand? I don't think you
understand.


Brent Merrill: "You're right. I didn't understand that.


Jesse Jackson: "Well, needless to say -- needless to say that the
sovereignty of American – Native American tribes are federally
protected rights. As long as Native Americans were perishing on
those reservations it didn't matter to states. But now that you have
gaming on the reservations and economic development on the
reservations, and indeed in some states voting on the reservations,
the state now wants to impose itself on the federally protected
sovereignty of the states........."

I couldn't believe it either..