What happens when liberals decide “Quotes of the Year”
Fred R. Shapiro is a Yale historian. He compiles an annual “memorable quotes of the year” list and has publishes the “Yale Book of Quotations.”
MSM outlets love Shapiro’s lists.
Shapiro, you see, is an admitted liberal historian.
And the omissions on his authoritative list of quotes are revealing.
Topping the list are quotes from Sarah Palin and Tina Fey. John McCain made the list, too.
But out of all the gaffetastic gaffes committed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Professor Shapiro couldn’t find a single noteworthy quote to include on his definitive list. Because, you see, he did not find the Democrat ticket’s gaffes “memorable” or “remarkable:”
Sarah Palin lost the election, but she’s a winner to a connoisseur of quotations.
The Republican vice presidential candidate and her comedic doppelganger, Tina Fey, took the top two spots in this year’s list of most memorable quotes compiled by Fred R. Shapiro.
First place was “I can see Russia from my house!” spoken in satire of Palin’s foreign policy credentials by Fey on “Saturday Night Live.” Palin actual quote was: “They’re our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”
Palin also made the third annual list for her inability to name newspapers she reads. When questioned by CBS anchor Katie Couric, Palin said she reads “all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.” Palin’s quotes were pivotal, said Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at the Yale Law School who compiles the list. “This quote helped shape the election results,” he said of the Russia quote. “As it sank in the public realized this was someone really, really inexperienced and perhaps lacking in curiosity about the world.” Shapiro issued his Yale Book of Quotations, with about 13,000 entries, two years ago after six years of research. He expects to release the next edition in about five years, but in the meantime plans to issue annual top 10 lists.
…Palin’s running mate, Sen. John McCain, also made the list twice, once for his “the fundamentals of America’s economy are strong” comment in April and again for saying “maybe 100″ when asked last January how many years U.S. troops could remain in Iraq.
Shapiro said the quotes may have been somewhat unfairly construed. “Nonetheless, these quotes cemented his image as someone who was out of touch with economic realities or indifferent to economic realities and being someone who was fanatical about prosecuting the war in Iraq,” he said.
Shapiro relies on suggestions from quote-watchers around the world, plus his own choices from songs, the news and movies, and then searches databases and the Internet to determine the popularity of the quotes.
Phil Gramm, a McCain advisor, made the list for saying “We have sort of become a nation of whiners” in July in reference to Americans concerned about the economy.
President-elect Barack Obama didn’t make the list, not even for his much-criticized remark in which he said some small-town Americans “cling to guns or religion.”
“To me it didn’t seem like a very remarkable or very foolish quote,” said Shapiro, who describes himself as a liberal Democrat. “Ultimately I decided against it, but it was a close call.”
No “Gird your loins.” No “mark my words.” No “J-O-B-S is a three-letter word.” No FDR on TV.
No “57 states.” No “states in the middle.” No “Iran doesn’t pose serious threat.”
No “typical white person.” No “not the person I knew.”
No “first time in my adult lifetime.”
And no “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
Some gaffes, as we saw over and over again over the last year, are more equal than others.
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Did you actualy expect him to be fair???
Please.
I would have swore “Above my paygrade” would have made it on the list. Considering Obama was vying for a seat in the Highest Office in the land at the time.
But which quotes will people be saying 4 years from now?
That’s what this bitter, Bible-totin’ gun nut wants to know.
Excellent choice.
Did “I want to cut his $$% off?” make the list?
You know – I was just down at Katie’s Cafe discussing this with the guys from Home Depot…
Biden’s quotes and gaffes would make a book all by itself. Next project Michelle?
I’ll have: “I’m coming Weezy” for $300, Alex.
“Punished with a child”
“We are The One we’ve been waiting for”
You’re on a roll 30!
“That was not the (fill in the blank) I knew.” (followed by a thump-thump)
wasn’t that an American Idol song??
But my favorite is…..
“It is wonderful to be back in Oregon,” Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”
Ahh, how the country will grow under Obama!
This is not helping michelle obamas kids….
So let’s start our own list. Here’s the parameters based on a Shapiro statement:
“What I have come to do is pick some quotes that really say something about our culture and they tend almost exclusively to be quotes that are notable for negative reasons rather than being admirable or eloquent,” Shapiro said.
1) Gov. Rod Blagojevich:
“I should say if anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it. I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly and notoriously, and those who feel like they want to sneakily, and wear taping devices, I would remind them that it kind of smells like Nixon and Watergate.”
2) Barack H. Obama:
“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening.”
3) Joe Biden:
“Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.”
4) Nancy Pelosi:
“Elect us, hold us accountable, and make a judgment and then go from there. But I do tell you that if the Democrats win and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan,”
Add your own here….
I guess the good professor thinks it is fine to have someone who is really, really inexperienced snd myopic but megalomaniacal running for office. I mean Obama can’t even see Rezko from his home and the guy lived next door!
How about: three letter word: j-o-b-s
“When you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”
“Can I finish my waffle?”
“Within 6 months he’ll be tested.”
“GOD @#$% AMERICA!”
“AMERICAS CHICKENS ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST!”
Mr. Shapiro just can’t recognize a memorable quote.
More of it.
Tighten it.
Sharpen it.
And I think this would be an excellent choice for your syndicated column.
“The war is lost” Harry Reid. DOH!!!
“Um ah um um um ah I…Uh um….”
Typical liberal insult…they said the same thing about GWB. At least he could try to think of a better phrase…
P.S. I’m sure that a person who is “curious about the world” will make a much better leader than someone who has experience, wisdom, insight, and (gasp!) patriotism.
/sarc
I think a dated picture of Obama shaking hands with Blagojevich and the “I did not have contact” quote should be there. It’s stupid enough to make it a close second to a picture of the stained dress and another famous presidential quote – “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
This one will come back to haunt us all. Perhaps the most memorable quote EVAH.
So, Fred R. Shapiro is a Yale historian. Isn’t that the same as a pulp fiction writer?
Yale “historian” = Science Fiction/Fantasy
I can see the crowds at the Fred R. Shapiro, Yale historian’s book signing:
“Oh professor, I just adore your new book, it’s soooo mind-expanding! (large black pupils, slack jaws and rolling eyeballs in abundance). That title:
Fred Shapiro
Yale Historian
sort of reminds me of Sat Night Live:
Fred Garvin
Male Prostitute
The word professor at one time meant a person who professes to be an expert teacher of highest rank.
Well, we can now throw that into the trash heap of history.
I don’t expect a turd to be impressed with anything other than itself.
Because the campaign season was SO LONG this cycle, some of the best quotes were in 2007.
I confess that I can not remember if the sadly obligatory “just words?” and “arugula” comments were 2007 or 2008 gaffes.
My collie says:
There are SO MANY great ones to choose from, it makes me dizzy.
This list of memorable quotes will keep the libs going for a while. They’re all just waiting for the sequel to “Prairie Home Companion” to come out.
Liberals just suck.
Liberals have no core beliefs. And when you don’t believe in something you will believe in anything.
Liberals believe that Conservative free speech is Hate-Speech.
Liberals believe that Majority Rule is unconstitutional.
Liberals believe that the ends justify the means everytime.
Liberals believe that “feelings” trump “rationale” everytime.
How about this one?
“I’ve answered, like, 8 questions already!”
Mr. Shapiro is probably in the same boat as I am. A person can’t possibly record all the stupid quotes emanating from the left, the task is too daunting, way too overwhelming.
Joe Biden alone can plagiarize 50 stupid things to say before breakfast all by himself, could you imagine what kind of workload just one busload of Truthers could cause?
Imagine trying to write down all the incredibly stupid crap being uttered in front of the Marine Recruiting office in Berkley.
Picture trying to record all the excuses uttered by as few as one dozen Obamadrones after the Zogby “Obamoron” Exit Polls came out.
Imagine one drunken screed uttered by Sean Penn, or worse Michael Moore on a donut high.
Shapiro took the easy way out, he just scribbled down what ever the NYT put in its headlines – which is pretty much the state of journalism today.
“Hold on, a second, sweetie…”
OR – when speaking of Hillary: “Senator at the Democratic convention “like Glenn Close with a knife” in “Fatal Attraction.”
(No fan of Hillary, but eluding to the fictional femme fatal’s phychosis seemed a little over the top for someone who gets offended so much).
“I want to take their profits…”
“Bankrupt the Coal Industry…”
he helped pass legislation regulating the nuclear industry (when that legislation didn’t pass the full Senate).
“I was not aware that I had voted no,” he said that day in June 2002, asking that the record be changed to reflect that he “intended to vote yes.”
Pushed the wrong button 6 times in his short stint as a Senator?
Correction to my post above…this was over an 8 year period as a lawmaker.
What was once memorable have now become near-senile ramblings from the wretched Left. Who elected this dork as the Chief Chronicler of our nation’s memorable quotes? Egads.
Okay, what was supposed to be so dumb about Sarah Palin saying you can see Russia from some parts of Alaska? It’s true, right?
Obama: “My father served in World War II, and when he came home, he got the services that he needed.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At The NALEO Conference, Washington, DC, 6/28/08)
“Just Air Raiding Villages And Killing Civilians”
“uh, um…”
Only because it it so frequently repeated by somebody who is said to be an excellent public speaker by his followers.
Mr. Hanky being the exception.
What about “healing the planet and lowering the sea levels?” Man, that Berlin speech was earth changing.
Slightly OT:
Obama’s Office of the President-Elect is reporting that their “internal investigation” turned up no dirt on the Obama/Blago connection. You can all go back to sleep, now.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081215/ap_on_el_pr/illinois_governor_obama
Richard Danzig
Al Gore last year:
“The polar ice cap will be gone in five years.”
Al Gore this year:
“The polar ice cap will be gone in five years.”
Conservatives seek to inform and understand, while liberals win and convert others to their way of thinking. Fairness doesn’t enter into it. Neither do facts.
Liberals seek to win, I meant to say.
A pub I used to go to had a permanent sign behind the bar saying “Free Beer Tomorrow”. Same concept.
The left is so reliably predictable they’re almost not fun! It’s just too easy!
No “57 states not counting AK and HI”? That sucks … it will always be my favorite.
That either was either a joke or a minor slip (incompletely changing from 50 to 47). Hardly a Palin scale gaffe.
That’s the second half of the correct statement that “compared to the soviet union in the cold war, Iran doesn’t ..”. You’re either deliberately giving a false impression of what Obama said, or, at best, refusing to correct your initial false impression.
If Obama had said (which he very nearly did say) that a typical black person thinks the nation still discriminates against blacks, you would not complain. He said something true and not offensive. Stop hyperventilating over it.
Obama won a huge amount of white support for his handling of the Reverend Wright issue (OK, not from this blog). He gave a “fair and balanced” discussion of race that is helping the country move forward.
LGM has an excuse for everything his master does wrong doesn’t he?
LGM, go play out on the freeway…
In 5 years Al Gore will state that his quote about the polar ice cap was taken out of context, the full quote was, “The polar ice cap will be gone in five years. No it won’t (through a fake sneeze.)“
We could easily publish liberal gaffes/quotes and put them on the Internet for all to read it and weep.
“feelings” trump “logic” every time!
No the press did, because if the press had actualy done its job, this would have crushed obama the fraud. Imagine if McCain had gone to a KKK based church for 22 years and tried to claim he didn’t notice. obamas 22 years sitting in a pew listening to outright racism should have been enough to disqualify him from the presidency right there.
Here and here are pics of Fred.
Fred, those oversize glasses? Totally NPR, baby! Totally NPR.
What a mutt.
“Hardly a
PalinBiden scale gaffe.”There, fixed it for ya…..
LGM is missing the point as usual. Put it this way, if Palin or any Republican had said ANYTHING remotely close to what Obama/Biden said during the campaign it would have been so widely reported and included on this list.
Period.
“I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They’re not in danger of going under.”
Rep. Barney Frank, July 14, 2008
Don’t forget the immortal ‘Thank you everybody. It’s good to be in Sunshine!’
LGM, feebie nailed it.
You need to get a grip. Your guy is just a guilty as anyone else at making gaffes, and his VP is even worse. The fact is that they were not included on the list most likely because the compiler likes them and doesn’t want to embarrass them.
Historian Rick Shenkman was interviewed by Brian Lamb on C-Span last month. Shenkman founded the History News Network so historians worldwide could share their views on the news. He said historians are smarter than the rest of mankind because they study history constantly and can apply its lessons to our present-day needs. And wouldn’t you know it, surprise, surprise—he said most historians are liberal. An excerpt:
Lenin and Stalin as usual are clapping from the grave…
It’s sad when we’re faced with undeniable proof that fellow humans can be such blind, unthinking pawns.
sonofdy said (#64):
Even if the very worst about Wright were true (it isn’t, the “God damn America” was out of context), it would nearly be at the level of KKK.
The KKK wants to take away rights from blacks. At worst, Wright was taking black victimhood too far. Southern whites never lived in fear of being lynched by black hooded goons for organizing a white people’s voter registration drive.
lgm – missing the point of the post…again.
I can see it so clearly now, which is why you avoided responding to my post,,, no?
And lgm is still missing the point, which is that any ties between McCain and any kind of radicalism would have been day-in/day-out headline news. The MSM even attempted to scandalize Sarah Palin by “linking” her with eccentric (by our standards) African charismatic pastor Rev. Thomas Muthee.
Similarly, vis-a-vis Obama and Bill Ayres, if McCain had “palled around” with someone like Timothy McVeigh, it would have been hung around McCain’s neck so many times that he probably would have been forced to drop out of the campaign, because he wouldn’t be allowed to talk about anything else.
For number one, I would have listed,”To answer that question with specificty is above my pay grade.”
Yale historian….yawn! Means nothing to me. Another one of those that takes history and twists it to fit his own opinion, instead of looking at it, properly, with an unbiased view, or assumes things that just aren’t there (a common mistake many “historians” make). I saw the article early this morning. Read some of the quotes and then noticed the number of Palin/McCain ones, and clicked on another story, shaking my head.
How could we forget Obama while campaigning in St. Louis Missouri: “I’m in Kansas City, sweetie.” ?
My collie says:
How about the comment heard on almost every campaign stop where the teleprompter crapped out:
“Uh…uh…..the point was…uh uh to…now hold on now….uh uh uh uh….”
Obingo the Dunce.
How did lgm not make the list?
Notice he/she/it didn’t try to defend The Obamanator’s energy policy of bankrupting the coal industry which will shut down America.
My favorite Liberal Quote still comes from William Blythe Jefferson Clinton:
You could almost write a 500 page book with most of the outrageous crap coming out of the mouths of most Democrats as many have already outlined above.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: “Come and Take Them!”
This is an example of why, contrary to the expectations of many of his supporters, President Bush will continue to be vilified by historians, ALL forms of media, and text books. There will be no legacy of astuteness, courtesy, class, defending our country, and bringing a country back economically from recession and an attack on us.
I hate these leftists donkey rear-ends. And I mean really hate them.
Finally read previous comments and see that there is a plurality of votes for the paygrade comment.
I might revise my number one quote to the joke Palin told in her VP acceptance speech: “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick.”
I feel I can safely guarantee that is etched in the American collective consciousness. It was so drilled into Obama’s melon, he blurted out the “lipstick on a pig” comment. The Great and Powerful Ozbama was swept away. He conceded defeat to Palin when he said he used to be on the cover of magazines but maybe he could get a centerfold in Popular Mechanics.
Palin totally got under his skin with that cultural sensation.
Personally, I do not waste my time worrying about people like this. He is in the same class as Noam “Hooter girls busted him” Chomsky.
Memorial Day, 2008. Barak Obama in Las Cruces, NM: “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong”.
Hahahahah – LOL- that one still makes me laugh so hard my sides hurt!
Shapiro, university degrees aside, is obviously a mentally challenged liberal.
Reality has a known liberal bias.
jbh45. You are correct. His is an empty suit propped up by liberals and those who think that December 7, 1941 was the day we dropped the H-bomb on the racist JAPS!
My favorite was Joe Biden’s girl girl/girl boys speech. He called his sister a girl-boy…i took that to mean his sister is butch. LOL, this shapiro guy is a typical kiss butt liberal. I could never be a liberal, i just can’t kiss butt the way these people can. I just have to call things the way I see them.
MikeOK said:
McCain did pall around with known terrorists such as Charles Colson (advocate of firebombing). Like Ayers, Colson has tried to rehabilitate himself.
feebiebabe said:
What point did I miss? This was taken out of context. The point was that we need a ground forces presence in Afghanistan so that we are not reduced to just … . Military experts agree.
By the way, many of your Obama quotes are funny gaffes, like the one about Hillary, and the “sweety” one (the only genuinely bad one).
It’s hard to believe that we are now the one’s whining and grasping at straws. I’m gonna miss those days of not being the losers.
*lgm needs to get out more often for some fresh air; In other words, get your head out of Obamas’ rectal orafice so you may better observe the coming train wreck from a distance!
To understand Shapiro, you have to understand what an insular place Yale University is. Although it is located in the city of New Haven, Ct., Yale University is an island unto itself in New Haven. The faculty members have no friendships outside of their Yale colleagues. Everyone that Mr. Shapiro know is a dyed in the wool liberal. Nobody he knows has ever been to a NASCAR race or a bowling alley. Nobody at Yale would have the slightest idea what the real SEC was. Sure, they would know the Securities and Exchange Commission but they would not know what the real SEC is. So living in that bubble, Professor Shapiro would think that everybody in the world thinks McCain is a fool. McCain’s degree from the US Naval Academy would make McCain a fool in the eyes of people like Professor Shapiro. I will wager a hundred dollars that Mr. Shapiro never met anybody who is in the US Navy.
Liberal Democrat Shapiro can quote me: “Liberal logic is an oxymoron”
Like so many things involving the left, he elected himself.