Fenger Pointing
Becky Fenger | December 24, 2008
Quotes of the year
Out of the mouths of babes, bloggers and politicians comes fodder for my “Quotes of the Year” column. It is no less entertaining than “Funniest Home Videos,” pro wrestling and Amateur Night combined:
“No woman is illegal.”—- U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, Jan. 10 on a presidential campaign stop in Law Vegas where a husband shouted that the immigrant Hillary was talking to was illegal.
“So my job is to tell the truth, to be straight with the American people about how I intend to end climate change...”—- Barack Obama at the Jan. 15 Democrat presidential debate. (End climate change? I didn’t know mere mortals could alter the laws of the Universe. Wow!)
“Bill Clinton, with his trembly, red-faced rage, makes John McCain look young. His divisive and destructive daily comportment—this is a former president of the United States— is a civic embarrassment.”—- Author Peggy Noonan, for Wall Street Journal Online, Jan. 25.
“It seems more equitable for taxpayers to underwrite the next Super Bowl rather than private donors.”—- Scottsdale interior designer Beverly Lloyd-Lee, Feb. 9. (What? Building them the stadium at taxpayer expense wasn’t enough for the poor NFL?)
“I think in her next book she’ll appear nude on the cover; that’s what she’s about.”—- ABC News veteran Sam Donaldson on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Feb. 10, referring to author Ann Coulter. He thinks she makes outrageous comments just to sell books. (Well, she does, but her brain can run circles around Sam’s toupee-covered one.)
“Buckley left his mark. But the end result of what he started (the conservative movement) is nothing to inspire pride.”—- Arizona Republic editorial writer Linda Valdez, Feb. 29, in response to the laudatory comments upon his death two days earlier. She claimed that giving us the movement that put George W. Bush in the White House and carried us into a war in Iraq is nothing to brag about. (And that’s the sum of Buckley’s worth?)
“I’m going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16.”—- President-elect Obama on the campaign trail in March.
“Let me tell you who me and Barack are.”—- Michelle Obama on the “Colbert Report,” Apr. 15 in response to the charge that she and her husband are elitist. (She emerged from Harvard and Princeton with that kind of grammar? If you read her thesis, you know she did.)
“We don’t racially profile our contributors.”—- The irrepressible U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, July 12, in a congressional primary debate with challenger Denise Majette who pointed out donations to McKinney from suspected Islamic terrorists.
“We’re going to have a sniper camera looking for douche bags, and they just want me to shred them hard core.”—-Professional party organizer Hooman Karamian dba Nick Richie in an interview with bar-scene reporter Megan Finnerty, Sep. 25 prior to a bash at Scottsdale’s Pussycat Lounge. He video records drunks in action and posts it on thedirtydrummer.com Web site. How precious.
“America is divided into two parties: a stupid party and an evil party. When they both act stupid and evil, that’s called bipartisanship.”—- Author and public speaker Dinesh D’Souza from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, when his elderly mother asked him to explain bipartisanship to her.
“Haven’t you ever been here before? What the heck are you doing here?”—- An employee of Whole Foods in New York City when he found out a Phoenix resident who was in the store wasn’t an Obama supporter. (Only the word he used wasn’t “heck”)
“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”—- U.S. President George W. Bush, Dec. 16 in an interview on CNN explaining why he supported the government bailouts for financial organizations and the auto industry.