776 Stupidest Things Ever Said Read Free Page B

touch with county employees
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
    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
On Civil Rights, Great Strides Made in:
    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.
On Clarifications:
    [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
On Clarifications:
    This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.
    Ron Ziegler, press secretary to President Richard Nixon
On Clarifications:
    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
On Clarifications:
    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
On Clarifications:
    I stand by all the misstatements.
    Dan Quayle, then vice-presidential candidate, defending himself against criticism for making verbal gaffes
On Clarity:
    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.
On Clarity, Communistic:
    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
On Clear Thinking, Governmental:
    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)
On Clear Thinking, Vice-Presidential:
    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.)
On Coercion:
    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
On Comebacks, Clever and Otherwise:
    We on this side of the House are not such fools as we look.
    House member overheard retorting to taunts
On Comedy:
    Our comedies are not to be laughed at.
    movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn
On Commies, Pesky Peace-Loving:
    [The Soviet Union is using] every device of