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18 Outrageous Conservative Quotes
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Republican Congressman Joe Wilson made a name for himself Wednesday night by shouting “You lie!” during President Obama’s health-care speech to Congress, but he’s hardly the first conservative to spark controversy with a crazy statement. In his new book, Republican Gomorrah, Daily Beast columnist Max Blumenthal presented a compendium of quotes from influential right-wingers.
“[America has to import so many workers because] for the last 35 years we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce.”
—former Gov. Mike Huckabee during the 2008 presidential race
“Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women, and children around the world.”
—former Sen. Fred Thompson during the 2008 presidential race
Read an excerpt from Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah.
“Our gays are more macho than their straights.”
—Ann Coulter, commenting in 2005 on Jeff Gannon, the conservative plant in the White House press corps who turned out to be a male escort.
“It’s not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go.“
—Minister Mark Driscoll of the Mars Hill Church of Seattle, defending the homosexual escapades of Rev. Ted Haggard in 2006
“I called to buy some meth, but I threw it away.”
—Rev. Ted Haggard, when details began to emerge about his visits to a male prostitute, in 2006.
“I’m a radical! I’m a real extremist. I don’t want to impeach judges. I want to impale them!”
—Michael Schwartz, chief of staff to Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), in 2004
XTRA INSIGHT:
• Samuel P. Jacobs: Meet the ‘You Lie’ Guy “This whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is b.s. Not only do you kick him—you kick him until he passes out—then beat him over the head with a baseball bat—then roll him up in an old rug—and throw him off a cliff into the pounding surf below!!!!!”
—Michael Scanlon, former chief of staff to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and business partner of convicted felon Jack Abramoff, during the Clinton impeachment proceedings.
“How did [the Holocaust] happen ? Because God allowed it to happen… because God said, ‘My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.’”
—Rev. John Hagee in 2006, aired on YouTube in 2008.
“I have no skeletons in my closet.”
—Sen. David Vitter, speaking to the Louisiana Family Forum during his 2004 Senate race. He won, but later confessed to frequenting prostitutes.
“Vitter may well be much more able as a senator now than before because people tend to learn from their mistakes.”
—Rev. Billy McCormick of the Louisiana Christian Coalition in 2006.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Un-Pelosi: The Senator Who’ll Kill the Stupak Amendment
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
Palin's Noxious Ghostwriter
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
Did Women Beat the Right's Point Man?
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast, writing fellow at The Nation Institute and author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.
At the end of the day Its not too important to me what people say off topic, its important that they do their job well.
On the other hand, lots of these quotes are from religious leaders. Their whole job is talking/teaching the Christian faith. All these outrageous statements are not at all in line with Christian teaching, therefore they are doing a bad job and should be ashamed of themselves.
We should be able to impeach clergy too *grinn*
This is hilarious and brilliant! I am buying this book for sure, that is a promise.
"Vitter may well be much more able as a senator now than before because people tend to learn from their mistakes."
-Rev. Billy McCormick of the Louisiana Christian Coalition in 2006.
***********************yeah, right. Everytime I see Vitter I picture him in a diaper. The prostitute told the press Vitter liked to be spanked while wearing a diaper....
Now that is the Senator Louisiana loves! Is there something wrong with Louisiana as well as Vitter?
To be fair, I challenge Max Blumenthal to do the same - 18 outrageous comments by Democrats. I do not think he has guts!
Good point. The DB wouldn't post it anyhow.
What's stopping you from doing it? Can't think of any? Don't have internet access?
In the same spirit of fairness, I challenge Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh to publish books excoriating the GOP.
i'm not interested in other outrageous comments it's this one . . . the way Daily Beast is pitching this detracts from the outrageous conduct this red neck neo Nazi exhibited - I wish DB hadn't used this as a tie to book promo how stupid.
KemCho....
Nothing the Democrats say can even be compared to the visiousness and the stupidy of the Lunatic Fringe...They think that ignorance is a virtue. They are absolutely in a class by themselves. Low Class... that is.
Added to that is the fact that they clothe themselves in the cloak of Jesus. Anyone with one brain cell still working, knows that God, if indeed there is one, does not operate like the Lunatic Fringe does.
The GOP started to lose its way when Nixon ran in 68 and the worst (most racist) southern Dems came to the GOP after the Democrats seated racially-integrated delegations for the first time at their national convention.
Many of those old southern white men were angry and took their game to the GOP.
Many of the decendants of these old white men are the ones that are instigating all the discourse and violence you see these days. They are s till bigots
and RACISTS.
There used to be a liberal wing of the Republican Party. Honestly!! There were many good Republicans who helped pass some of the Civil Rights legislation and Social Reform legislation of the 60s.
It was the Democrats from the Old South who were most against those changes.
Another major change has been with the news and with talk radio. I can't imagine anyone being as loud and angry and hateful as Rush having such a large audience back then. For one thing, the average high school student had a much better knowledge of our government and history than many of the adults today. It is more difficult to lie to people if they know some truth.
The Lunatic Fringe is lazy. They do not have the intelligence or the work habits to dig up their our truth, the information tht is available to everyone, they just listen to other idiots and expouind on the other idiots views. What is easier than that?
In the past people didn't tolerate that much anger and meanness, just as they didn't tolerate as much violence and profanity in their entertainment.
Reagan changed culture in some very significant ways that made many of the problems today possible.
I lived in California when he was governor, and he did much of the same there. First, he made being greedy without caring for others a virtue.
Over and over again, everything was about money. Cut services and save a buck. Put the sick on the street and save the state the money it cost to care for them. Cut welfare and disability payments. Pour the money into defense and breaks for businesses. Expand corporate welfare. Make it hard for a disabled person to get money to live on and pay for medical care, but make it easy for a corporation to get subsidies.
To Reagan, that was good, that was right, that was smart, that was how America was supposed to be. He didn't say, "Only fools and suckers care about the needy," but his actions sent that message.
He also had little or no respect for education. Knowledge was not necessarily a good thing.
GWB took that to new limits, but Reagan -- and Nixon and Agnew before him with their complaints about educated snobs -- really had a kind of disdain for intellect and education.
I remember hearing him shout down and belittle some Nobel prize-winning professors when he was governor. He didn't put much stock in deep thinking. He just seemed to believe that God loved rich people and the good old USA, so anything rich people did was fine and anything the USA wanted it should have.
Reagon lived in a very lucky time when there was no Katrina or September 11 to challenge the belief that God loved and would always protect the USA.
Not many people know that the man who would later become President was the person that fed names to the Mc Carthyism investigations that ruined so many decent people. Reagon was president of the Screen Actors Guild when Mc Carthy was chasing communists.
So the Lunatic Fringe comes from all the past behaviors of the Republican Party.. It has all come to a head now.. Things like that usually do.
The question now is what can be done about these lunatics taking over this country completely.
MOZART
"To Reagan, that was good, that was right, that was smart, that was how America was supposed to be. He didn't say, "Only fools and suckers care about the needy," but his actions sent that message."
Maybe you should look into things a little closer. Reagan passed just as many social program bills as he put into defense spending. That's true about his term as governor of California and as president. He spent all the way around. The real lunatics are those who truly believe one political party is to blame for all the problems in this country. How ridiculous. It seems obvious that it would be a cinch to find stupid quotes from every group...Democrats, Republicans, Actors, Rednecks, Elitists, Atheists...they are all part of the human race and therefore flawed.
Reagan did a lot of great things, so did Carter. Both of them made grave errors. Quit acting like one side of the aisle has some greater moral and intellectual stance. What an arrogant, broken way to look at the world. That is what is wrong with this country and it's political climate. The "all-knowing" and decidedly Democrat or Republican rose colored glasses.
Reagan said that "the government was not the solution to the problem the government was the problem" then he went on to prove it doing more damage than any predecessor.
He was correct of course, but it was not actual Government that was the problem just letting people who think that way that was and is the problem
It is perfectly ok for Amish to believe that machinery should not exist, but they are not out asking to be bus drivers and airline pilots just so they can prove their point.
OverIt. Well said. Mozart sounds rather preachy, narrow minded, and sanctimonious. Neither party really cares about this country.
Mozart. You seem to love to direct alot of your bigotry against Southerners. Did you realize that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were Southerners?
Mozart, your comments are eloquent, accurate and more than fair to republicans and southerners. Ronald Reagan was a terrible governor and helped to wreck what used to be a great state. He made a particularly nasty form of greed popular among mainly republican. Reagan was even worse for the country as president than the crook Nixon. Of course, Bushwad topped them off and all but sealed our fate as a nation. We are now going down hill; China and India are ascending. Anyway, I cannot improve on your comments. It is a brilliantly succinct description of lunatics that are out to destroy the noble Idea of the United States of America.
Slavery is at the core. God is next because it's so easy to blame it on "messages in the night from God"; messages that no one else hears because, ya know, God is discreet. Defense of race then comes. And a string of buggy-riders: state rights, secession, filibuster, nullificatio, etc. All adding up to .....tada.....Hateful emotionalism, and don't it feel good!Slavery is at the core. God is next because it's so easy to blame it on "messages in the night from God"; messages that no one else hears because, ya know, God is discreet. Defense of race then comes. And a string of buggy-riders: state rights, secession, filibuster, nullificatio, etc. All adding up to .....tada.....Hateful emotionalism, and don't it feel good!Slavery is at the core. God is next because it's so easy to blame it on "messages in the night from God"; messages that no one else hears because, ya know, God is discreet. Defense of race then comes. And a string of buggy-riders: state rights, secession, filibuster, nullificatio, etc. All adding up to .....tada.....Hateful emotionalism, and don't it feel good!
Slavery is at the core. God is next because it's so easy to blame it on "messages in the night from God"; messages that no one else hears because, ya know, God is discreet. Defense of race then comes. And a string of buggy-riders: state rights, secession, filibuster, nullificatio, etc. All adding up to .....tada.....Hateful emotionalism, and don't it feel good! [sorry, no edit feature]
If people learned from their mistakes republicans would be geniuses.
Typical projection debate REPUG. Call other's what YOU are, you piece of @#&**. Joe Lewis, Charter member of Liars,inc. Alias Repuglican Party member, airhead brain club, closet case homosexual, in my humble opinion of course.
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." H.R. Clinton
"I haven't committed a crime, what I have done is fail to comply with the law." - New York City Mayor David Dinkins reacting to accusations that he didn't pay his taxes
To be clear, Dinkins has a point and it's important. Many of us brake laws all the time but do not commit crimes. A crime generally involves a bad act in conjunction with a bad mind (intent); noncompliance does not.
These are funny (head-scratcher and ha-ha)...but the Driscoll quotation is a bit out of context. He certainly was not defending Haggard, but rather expounding on the larger problem of pastoral infidelity.
"The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep." - Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos speaking on Larry King Live
"If the...if he...if is means is and never has been, that is not - that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement." - President Bill Clinton stumbling on the definition of the word "is"
"If we do the work that we can do...people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk again." - John Edwards
http://www.rateitall.com/t-19883-democrats-say-stupid-things-too.aspx
Wow what a list of stupid comments, even edited for best effects that is really lame. Kind of like blaming Clinton for having sex with an adult woman as being just the same as this list http://www.armchairsubversive.org/.
Can you imagine what would have happened if someone had shouted something like this during one of Bush's addresses to Congress? Fox News would have been outraged, up in arms, pushing for a "grassroots" campaign to get the traitor to resign. Jeez, back in the day they labeled anyone who even thought the Iraq War was a bad idea "unpatriotic." So where is their condemnation of this behavior now? Do they suddenly believe the office of the President is less sacred now that our Democratically elected leader isn't the one they would have chosen, or do they think the office doesn't demand as much respect when it is held by a Black man?
#1 nobody who opposed Bush that much got anywhere that close except at a State of the Union Speech. And even then there was very limited access.
#2 anyone who threatened death to Bush would be arrested and charged.as many people were and are still serving time.
#3 Anyone protesting and carrying a gun would have been shot on sight
Thank you.
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