The HyperTexts

Famous Morons

Is the term "famous morons" the ultimate oxymoron? Perhaps "infamous morons" would be better; the imbeciles quoted here are certainly prime candidates for any thinking person's Hall of Shame.

Related pages: Famous Beauties, Famous Historical Beauties, Famous Courtesans, Famous Ingénues, Famous Hustlers, Famous Pool Sharks, Famous Rogues, Famous Heretics, Famous Hypocrites, Famous Forgers and Frauds, Famous Flops, Famous Morons, The Dumbest Things Ever Said

Famous Morons, Dunces, Dolts, Dullards, Ding-Dongs, Idiots, Ignoramuses, Imbeciles, Fools, Simpletons, Clods and Blockheads:

Donald J. Trump

Rex Tillerson recently became the Secretary of Stating the Obvious! The irate Rexit called his boss an EFFIN' MORON after Big Rocket Man called for a "nearly tenfold" increase in the US nuclear arsenal. According to Popular Mechanics, that would cost $15 trillion dollars for 50,000 nukes that can never be used! At nearly four times the entire federal budget, "it would be the most expensive chest-thumping exercise ever." Yep, sounds effin' moronic to us! Trump claimed that he didn't call for the increase, but on December 22, 2016 he tweeted: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability!" Now the twitterverse is exploding with hashtags like #moron #morongate and our favorite, the poetic #MoronDon. Trump has been called a moron and an idiot by everyone in the White House and even by his own family, according to Michael Wolff, the author of the bestseller Fire and Fury.

George W. Bush

George "Dubya" Bush was undoubtedly the dumbest American president of all time, at least before Trump. His nicknames illustrate how little regard many people had for his intellectual capabilities: Dubya, Shrub, Bush Junior, Incurious George, Spurious George, and so on.

Bring 'em on!
Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties!
Afghanistan is the most daring and ambition mission in the history of NATO. [And the biggest debacle, thanks to you.]
Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction. [Dubya conveniently forgets that his nation developed thousands of WMDs.]
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.
This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating. [Do tell.]
I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe—I believe what I believe is right.
I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.
The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law. [Shrub Junior obviously never heard of the Supreme Court.]
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas.
I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.
They misunderestimated me. [Did they, indeed, Incurious George?]
Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter!—Dubya's parting words to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at his final G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as the two leaders looked on in shock.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test. [Oh really?]
Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning? [Rarely has the question been asked so badly.]
Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling. [Do tell!]
Reading is the basics for all learning.
As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.
Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.

Dick Cheney

I think of Dick Cheney unaffectionately as "the Penguin."

We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
With every advance by our coalition forces, the wisdom of [our] plan becomes more apparent.
Deficits don't matter.
There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. [We do see you as you really are, Mr. Penguin!]

Donald Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld was the U.S. Secretary of Defense who planned and presided over the invasion of Iraq. Bush Junior called him "Rummy." The nickname seems to fit, since like Cheney he was a fascist drunk on power, and the use (i.e., abuse) of it.

I don't do quagmires.
I don’t do body counts.
I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won't last any longer than that.
Secretary Powell and I agree on every single issue that has ever been before this administration except for those instances where Colin's still learning.
There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact. [Et tu, Brute?]

There are known knowns.
There are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns.
That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we don't know we don't know.
—Donald Rumsfeld waxing poetic

Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann promised to close the American embassy in Iran if elected president. That would be a neat trick, since the embassy has been closed for decades. U.S. diplomatic relations with Iran were formally severed in April 1980, due to the Iranian hostage crisis, and have never been restored. Bachmann’s staff later claimed she was “speaking in the hypothetical” when she said she would close the nonexistent U.S. embassy in Iran. But of course Bachmann has made many similar errors, such as saying the American founding fathers ended slavery, when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves all their lives, even when they served as president. When that huge error was pointed out, rather than admitting that she is clueless about basic American history, Bachmann insisted that she had meant John Quincy Adams, who neither ended slavery nor was one of the founding fathers.

Bachmann has further rewritten U.S. history by placing the Revolutionary War battlefields of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire, and she has opined publicly that earthquakes are God's way of getting the attention of American politicians, that wives should be submissive to their husbands, and that Democratic presidents are somehow linked to breakouts of swine flu (presumably God kills American children if their parents vote for Democrats). Unfortunately for Bachmann, the swine flu epidemic of 1976 was during the presidency of Gerald Ford, not Jimmy Carter.

As reported by Huffington Post, Bachmann has urged the Pentagon to "prepare a war plan" in case Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, alleging that Iran has threatened to launch nuclear warheads at the U.S. and Israel. (PolitiFact deemed that claim "False" and if it was true, it would have been in the headlines of every major newspaper.) In other words, Bachmann has a history of making up crazy "facts" and even using them to justify war.

Sarah Palin

I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. [Perhaps she should ask for a refund of the tuition!]
If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?
They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.
Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect. [Since America is imperfect, this means intelligent Americans must be our own worst enemy.]
Perhaps so. [When asked if America may need to go to war with Russia during an ABC News interview, September 11, 2008; please note the 9-11 synchronicity.]
I didn't really had a good answer, as so often—is me. [About writing notes on her hand during her Tea Party convention speech.]
Only dead fish go with the flow. [On quitting her job as governor of Alaska.]
But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies. [Palin sympathizing with other right-wing fanatics,in a radio interview with Glenn Beck.]

''They're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.''—Sarah Palin, getting the vice president's constitutional role wrong after being asked by a third grader what the vice president does, in an interview with NBC affiliate KUSA in Colorado, Oct. 21, 2008

''I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out.''—Sarah Palin, explaining how a nonexistent department would automatically throw out the ethics violation charges that compelled her to resign as governor of Alaska, during an ABC News interview, July 7, 2009

''It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: 'Sit down and shut up,' but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out.''—Sarah Palin, quitting her job as governor, July 3, 2009

''So we discussed what was going on in Africa. And never, ever did I talk about, Well, gee, is it a country or is it a continent, I just don't know about this issue.''—Sarah Palin, asked about the post-election revelation by McCain staffers that Palin thought Africa was a country, not a continent, from a Fox interview with Greta Van Susteren, Nov. 11, 2008

''They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.''—Sarah Palin, on her foreign policy insights into Russia, which she acquired mysteriously by being able to "see" Russia, in an ABC News interview, Sept. 11, 2008

''Our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of.''—Sarah Palin, on her foreign policy experience, in a CBS interview with Katie Couric, Sept. 25, 2008

''Ohh, good, thank you, yes.''—Sarah Palin, after a notorious Canadian prank caller complimented her on the documentary about her life, Hustler's "Nailin Palin," Nov. 1, 2008

Madeleine Albright

I think this is a very hard choice, but the price: we think the price is worth it.

During a 60 Minutes episode that aired on May 12, 1996, Lesley Stahl asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright the following question about U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price: we think the price is worth it." Please note that even when appearing on a major news show with millions of viewers, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl—a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. And yet while more than half a million Iraqi children were dying of starvation, Saddam Hussein was building more palaces. The U.S. later ended up invading Iraq and waging war for nearly a decade, with generally terrible and still-inconclusive results. Was the price "worth it," really? What if the children had been American children ... would the price still have been worth it?

Richard M. Nixon

I am not a crook!

George H. W. Bush

Read my lips: No new taxes!

Rick Perry

"I will tell you: It's three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone: Commerce, Education and the ... what's the third one there? Let's see ... OK. So Commerce, Education and the ... The third agency of government I would ... I would do away with the Education, the ... Commerce and ... let's see ... I can't. The third one, I can't. Sorry. Oops."—Rick Perry, experiencing an epic meltdown during a GOP debate, forgetting his plan to abolish the dastardly Department of Energy.

Herman Cain

They [China] have indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.—Herman Cain, warning that China could develop nuclear weapons, even though they've them since 1964.

Mitt Romney

Corporations are people, my friend ... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."—Mitt Romney to a heckler at the Iowa State Fair who suggested that taxes should be raised on corporations as part of balancing the budget

I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed. —Mitt Romney, telling quite a story (as in a tall tale) to unemployed people in Florida, since his net worth has been estimated at $200 million and he has a Cayman Island IRA estimated at up to $101 million, in which it seems he has somehow sheltered nearly half his wealth from any taxes whatsoever

I'm not concerned about the very poor. —Mitt Romney, seeming to equate the problems of the very poor with those of the super-rich

I saw my father march with Martin Luther King. —Mitt Romney, bragging about his family's record on civil rights; Romney later admitted the he didn't see his father march with King, because his father never marched with the civil rights leader on the same day in the same city

Rick Santorum's Insanitorium

In a speech he made Ave Maria College in 2008, Santorum dismissed the faith of Protestants as false, deluded, vain piousness, saying that Satan ("the Father of Lies") had infiltrated the Protestant religion and that "mainstream, mainline Protestantism" is now in "shambles" and is "gone from the world of Christianity." According to Santorum, "Once the colleges fell, and those who were being educated in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘Well, wait, the Catholic Church?’ No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic, but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic. Sure, the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic. Mainstream, mainline Protestantism. And of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is a shambles. It is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. So they attacked mainline Protestantism, they attacked the Church, and what better way to go after smart people who also believe they’re pious — to use both vanity and pride to go after the Church."

In an interview with the Associated Press, Rick Santorum opined that mutually consenting adults do not have a right to privacy in bed, saying, "[The] right to privacy ... doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution." He also compared homosexuality with “man on child” and “man on dog,” causing the interviewer to say that Santorum was “freaking” her out. He furthermore said, “ ... [if] you have the right to consensual [gay] sex ... then you have the right to ... adultery.” But of course most Americans think their sex lives are their own business and don’t want the government dictating what they can do in bed.

Santorum wants state governments to legislate the limits of human desires and passions: "The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire." He thinks our desires are too dangerous for us to be trusted with them.

“This [gay marriage] is an issue just like 9-11. We didn’t decide we wanted to fight the war on terrorism because we wanted to. It was brought to us. And if not now, when? When the supreme courts in all the other states have succumbed to the Massachusetts version of the law?” Rick Santorum, comparing legalizing same-sex marriage to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

In his Philadelphia Inquirer column, Santorum asked, "Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?" Either Santorum is admitting that he has a "thing" for his brother and his mother-in-law, or he is admitting that he is a homophobe.

Santorum wants to ban contraceptives: "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is ... the dangers of contraception. ... It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is [sic] counter to how things are supposed to be." In other words, Americans should have sex in the missionary position and breed like rabbits, or give up sex altogether. But around 99 percent of sexually active American women have used some form of birth control, and "helping people get access to birth control" is supported by 82 percent of Americans. Santorum is virtually a cult of one, along with the aptly named Pope Benedict (who actually held the renamed office of the Grand Inquisitor before becoming pope).

 “The state has a right to do that [outlaw contraceptives], I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a constitutional right, the state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have. That is the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court, they are creating right, and they should be left up to the people to decide.” Rick Santorum, declaring that states have the right to outlaw all forms of birth control. But if states can outlaw birth control on Catholic religious grounds, why can't Christian Scientists outlaw all health care, since they don't believe in it? Why can't faith healers make it illegal for Americans to seek any kind of of medical care, other than paying them for a laying on of hands? How can anyone seriously suggest that in the modern world, flaky religious beliefs should be able to trump reason?

"This [the government making contraceptives available to women by law] is simply someone trying to impose their values on somebody else, with the arm of the government doing so. That should offend everybody, people of faith and no faith that the government could get on a roll that is that aggressive.” But Santorum has spoken repeatedly about forcing all Americans to obey God's will and God's laws, as Santorum interprets them. The new Obama healthcare legislation doesn't force anyone to use contraceptives. But Santorum clearly wants to deny all American women access to contraceptives, because of his religious beliefs on contraception, which are not shared by most Americans. So who is trying to impose his values on whom, really?

"We have Judeo-Christian values that are based on biblical truth. ... And those truths don't change just because people's attitudes may change." But according to "biblical truth," fathers should be able to sell their own daughters as sex slaves, with the option to buy them back if they don't "please" their new masters [Exodus 21]. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is wrong about slavery. So who's to say that the writers of the Bible weren't also wrong about women's rights?

 “I believe that any doctor that performs an abortion, I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion, should be criminally charged for doing so.” Rick Santorum, saying that doctors should be arrested if they help women and girls deal with unwanted pregnancies due to rape and incest, or if they help end pregnancies that threaten the lives of pregnant women and girls.

"In far too many families with young children, both parents are working ... Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism." (from Santorum's book It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good). Of course women working has nothing to do with family values, needing to put bread on the table, or (gasp!) the desire to do productive things ... only Rick Santorum in his godly wisdom is able to see that "radical feminism" is the root of all evil, replacing the love of money.

After the South Carolina primary, Santorum said “Game on! ... Thank God for those [Americans] who cling to their guns and their Bibles.”

Santorum again: "The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical ... What I'm talking about is onward American soldiers. What we're talking about are core American values." But during the Crusades the Catholic church’s armies invaded the Middle East and massacred multitudes of Jews and Muslims. How, exactly, does murdering people of different races and creeds reflect “American values”?

Echoing Newt Gingrich, Santorum recently denied the human rights of millions of completely innocent Palestinian women and children, saying: “There is no ‘Palestinian.’ ” This is the type of racist “thinking” that led to 9/11 and two decade-long wars.

Santorum is not content with unnecessary wars in the Middle East and also wants to go to war with more than a billion Chinese citizens as well: “I don’t want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business.”

During a campaign stop in Iowa, Santorum said, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money." Like Newt Gingrich, he insults African Americans while pretending to want to help them, by suggesting that poor black people have a lesser work ethic than other poor people (presumably, poor white people).

Santorum favors torture: "I mean the fact is that some of this information that we have found out that led to Osama bin Laden actually came from these enhanced interrogation techniques." But what would he say if non-Christians were torturing American soldiers, I wonder?

Santorum, sounding every bit as confused as George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, asked, "Would the potential attraction to Mormonism by simply having a Mormon in the White House threaten traditional Christianity by leading more Americans to a church that some Christians believe misleadingly calls itself Christian, is an active missionary church, and a dangerous cult?" Well, if having irrational ideas and evangelizing them constitutes a dangerous cult, Rick Santorum is the likeliest candidate to head such an endeavor.

In an interview with CNS News, Santorum said, "The question is — and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well if that person — human life is not a person, then — I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We're going to decide who are people and who are not people.'" Despite the fact that millions of white Americans are pro-choice, Santorum elects to play the race card against President Obama.

 “I believe the earth gets warmer and I also believe the earth gets cooler. And I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man, through the production of CO2 — which is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the man-made part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas — is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd when you consider all the other factors.” Like many conservative Christians, Santorum denies the evidence of evolution and global warming, which means he threatens the lives of our children and grandchildren by refusing to confront and deal with facts.

“Suffering, if you’re a Christian, suffering is a part of life. And it’s not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life … There are all different ways to suffer. One way to suffer is through lack of food and shelter and there’s another way to suffer which is lack of dignity and hope and there’s all sorts of ways that people suffer and it’s not just tangible, it’s also intangible and we have to consider both.” Rick Santorum, saying that Americans should suffer because suffering is good, which is one of the many irrational ideas of Roman Catholicism.

“I support the Ryan budget plan. I think it’s the right direction on the major points. I can’t say I’ve read all of it, but on the major thrust of what he’s doing, I support what he wants to do with Medicare, Medicaid. The only thing I would do, frankly, as I’ve said publicly many times, I think we should implement a lot of these things sooner than what he’s suggesting.” Rick Santorum, supporting the Paul Ryan plan to kill Medicare and Medicaid, even though this would be a death sentence for many elderly and disabled Americans.

 “Yeah, remember, under the Bush administration, welfare — I mean, excuse me, poverty among African Americans and among single unmarried women, poverty was at the lowest rate ever in the history of this country. So Obama’s policies are not working, Bush polices worked! For long a time as a matter of fact.” Rick Santorum, falsely claiming that poverty was the lowest in history because of Bush policies. In fact, poverty increased during the Bush administration.

Newt Gingrich

It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.
I think you can write a psychological profile of me that says I found a way to immerse my insecurities in a cause large enough to justify whatever I wanted it to.
The problem isn’t too little money in political campaigns, but not enough. [Yeah, right.]
The idea that a Congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.
Gingrich primary mission: advocate of civilization, definer of civilization, teacher of the rules of civilization, leader of the civilizing forces.
I'm not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too much. [Ah, but do you think well, nutty Newt?]
I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real power. [Or perhaps real stupidity?]

Gingrich dismissed his marital infidelities by turning them into acts of passionate patriotism: "There's no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate." Gingrich had the first affair while his wife was battling cancer, and the second while he was hypocritically orchestrating Bill Clinton's impeachment for having an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Gingrich is an unapologetic hypocrite, as he just admitted in the quotes above. How can any presidential candidate say, "It doesn't matter what I do"? If that was true, Gingrich shouldn't criticize Barack Obama, as nothing he does would matter a hill of beans either. But of course Gingrich has created a ridiculous double-standard, in which nothing he does matters, but anything anyone else does matters greatly. So he can claim to be for "family values" while having multiple affairs and dodging child support, then turn around and castigate Bill Clinton for being unfaithful to his wife. According to realchange.org, "In an amazing act of hypocrisy, Gingrich was apparently dating [Castilla] Bisek all during Clinton-Lewinsky adultery scandal, even as he proclaimed family values and bitterly criticized the President for his adultery."

Normally, I would say that the sex lives of politicians should remain private. But when a hypocritical moralist attacks other people for something he's doing himself, I think we have every right to question his character, especially when he elects to run for high office. And the shameful way Gingrich treated his own family certainly calls both his character and personal morals into question ...

"The most notorious incident in Gingrich's marriage ... was when he cornered Jackie [his first wife] in her hospital room where she was recovering from uterine cancer surgery and insisted on discussing the terms of the divorce he was seeking. Shortly after that infamous encounter, Gingrich refused to pay his alimony and child-support payments. The First Baptist Church in his hometown had to take up a collection to support the family Gingrich had deserted. Six months after divorcing Jackie, Gingrich married a younger woman ... with whom he had been having an affair." ("Newt's Glass House" by Stephen Talbot, Salon.com, 8/28/1998)

Gingrich claims to be a Christian, but because Jesus Christ reserved his sternest criticism for hypocrites, how can we take Gingrich, the Ultimate Pharisee, seriously? If Gandhi had called for everyone else to practice non-violence, then had gone around beating up people himself, would anyone consider him a great man of peace? Of course not. We need a president who practices what he preaches, not one who lectures other people on ethics he has no intention of applying to himself.

"She isn’t young enough or pretty enough to be the President’s wife. And besides she has cancer." This is Newt Gingrich explaining why he dumped his first wife. Gingrich, who looks like a puffed-up, bloated toad, has no reason to judge his wife, or any woman, by her age and looks. By his standard, Mitt Romney should be president because he's younger and better looking  than Gingrich. But then Paris Hilton is even younger and better looking, so why not make her president?

One of Gingrich's extramarital flames, Anne Manning, said of her relationship with him during the 1976 campaign: "We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, 'I never slept with her.'" But of course that was also Bill Clinton's "thinking." It's not my place or desire to judge other people's sex lives, but I think Gingrich's hypocrisy is self-evident and deeply troubling in a presidential candidate. But Gingrich is also afflicted by wild hubris and erratic thinking that have no place in the White House ...

"Give the park police more ammo." This is Newt the "intellectual" explaining how to solve the homeless problem, after police shot and killed a homeless person in front of the White House.

"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons, we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic."—Newt Gingrich

Gingrich the "historian" seems to have forgotten the American Declaration of Independence, which clearly says that all human beings are created equal and that if they are denied equal rights and representative government they have the duty to resist their oppressors, using force if necessary to secure their God-given rights. In his incredible hubris, Gingrich negates the very basis of American values, by saying that some people are not really people and thus have no right to resist oppression. That was the fundamental mistake of the Confederacy and Nazi Germany, both of which chose to ignore the human rights of millions of people. Now the U.S. constantly risks World War III because our "ally" Israel refuses to treat the Palestinians like human beings, while more than a billon Muslims watch their degradation and brutal treatment with horror.

"It is time we passed a balanced budget amendment and return this government to limited spending." This from the man who wants to put a colony on the moon and who resists spending less money on a far-flung military empire that we don't need, can't afford, and only gets us in trouble when we try to police the world, especially in the Middle East. 

“If you're not brave, you're not going to be free.”—Newt Gingrich

Brave words, but why didn't Gingrich have the courage to live on his ample salary during his days in Washington? Why do politicians like Gingrich ask young Americans to risk their lives, health and mental well-being in wars they start on false premises, when they themselves lack the courage to simply not take bribes and kickbacks?

“If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.”—Newt Gingrich

Do tell. We saw the cost of one "fairly ignorant" presidency, that of Bush Junior. Can we really "afford" an ignorant, bombastic, hypocritical presidency? That's what we'll undoubtedly see if Gingrich gets elected.

Democrats will bring to the United States "the joys of Soviet-style brutality and the murder of women and children."—Newt Gingrich

Oh really? Didn't Democrats like John F. Kennedy do just the opposite and stand up to the Soviets? How many American Democrats, exactly, are in favor of murdering women and children? In reality, if any American politicians are endangering the lives of women and children, it's those Republicans who are working feverishly to deny women and girls the right to abortions even when they are victims of rape or incest, and when their lives and health are at risk. Having a baby is never a walk in the park and can be fatal. Many Republicans ignore the very real dangers of childbirth and autocratically deny women and girls the right to decide whether they want to become mothers. This is the sort of alpha male domination we might expect from the Soviet bloc, but here in the United States such "thinking" usually originates with right-wing lunatics like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. 

"The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change, and the only way you get change is to vote Republican."—Newt Gingrich

Only an incredibly insensitive cad could use the deaths of innocent children to fish for votes.

"There is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us."—Newt Gingrich

No, Newt. Gay people and many other Americans who aren't ultra-conservative Christians like you just want the same rights as everyone else. No heterosexual is threatened by gay marriage. I'm not going to leave my lovely wife to shack up with some man, just because it's legal. There is no reason to discriminate against other people because their taste in food, beverages or sex is different than ours.

The meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev was "the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Chamberlain in 1938."—Newt Gingrich

Gingrich made the comment above in 1985. If he had been the president then, rather than Reagan, the Cold War would still be in the deep freeze stage.

"The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did."

Gingrich made this comment recently, in 2010. But American Democrats are not doing anything like what then Nazis and Soviets did, when they denied citizens basic human rights and justice. Rather, in the United States, it is Republicans like John McCain who keep pushing legislation such as the latest National Defense Authorization Act, which grants the U.S. military the right to arrest American citizens without bringing charges and imprison them indefinitely without hearings or trials, even transferring them to prisons in foreign countries beyond the purview of American courts and judges who are versed in the Constitution.

"People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz."—Newt Gingrich

Hitler once professed to be all that stood between Germany and disaster. But like many American Republicans, Hitler didn't trust ordinary citizens with basic rights and freedoms. So we need to be very wary of "protectors" whose "protection" involves assuming more and more power, until the "supermen" start squashing us like insects beneath their goose-stepping boot-heels.

"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. There is no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center."—Newt Gingrich

American Muslims had nothing to do with 9-11, so there is no reason to punish them. The men who attacked us on 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia, not New York City. What Gingrich proposes is like saying that no Christian from New York should be allowed to worship in Oklahoma City, because Timothy McVeigh was a Christian from New York. Of course that makes no sense, because all New York Christians are not collectively guilty for the Oklahoma City bombing.

“I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words.” Newt Gingrich, may I point out that Hitler Youth were taught to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful by the Nazis? Do we really want our children to be loyal, obedient lapdogs, or do we want them to be able to think for themselves?

Famous (or Infamously) Bad Predictions

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."—Popular Mechanics, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."—Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."—Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 [DEC was one of the more successful computer companies until it missed catching the PC wave, then decided to "improve" on the PC by creating something software-incompatible called the Rainbow, which soon died a quick death along with DEC's fortunes]

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."—Bill Gates, 1981

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."—Western Union internal memo, 1876

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"—David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"—H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."—Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."—Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."—Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."—Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929, shortly before the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."—Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".—Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

Politics is a Foot-in-Mouth Disease

"A zebra cannot change its spots."—Al Gore

"During my service in the U.S. Congress, I took the initiative in inventing the Internet."—Al Gore [the Internet was up and running eight years before Gore was elected to Congress]

"Desert Storm was a stirring victory for the forces of aggression and lawlessness."—Vice President Dan Quayle

"It isn't pollution that's harming our environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."—Dan Quayle

"My fellow astronauts..."—Dan Quayle, speaking before the Apollo 11 astronauts at an anniversary celebration

"If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure."—Dan Quayle.

"I would never approach a small-breasted woman."—President Clinton, denying that he had sexually harassed Kathleen Willey

High as a Kite (But Not IQ-Wise)

"I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast."—Ronald Reagan

"When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it, and I didn’t inhale, and I never tried again."—Bill Clinton

"When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point."—Barack Obama

"Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed and sow it everywhere."—George Washington

"Casual drug users should be taken out and shot."—Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, telling a senate judiciary committee that marijuana and cocaine users should be summarily executed

Miscellaneous Stupidity

Reporter: "Did you visit the Parthenon during your trip to Greece?"
Shaquille O'Neal: "I can't really remember the names of the clubs that we went to."

"It was a mistake. It shows a lack of politeness to kill people when the pope asks us not to do it."—a Guatemalan government official on the execution of political prisoners just before the pope's visit

"The similarities between me and my father are different."—Dale Berra, Yogi Berra's son

Sarah Palin, Poet!

''Left Unalakleet warmth
for rain in Juneau tonite.
No drought threat down here,
ever but consistent rain reminds us:
'No rain?
No rainbow!'''
—one of Sarah Palin's Tweets recited by William Shatner as poetry on The Tonight Show

More Bushisms

For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America.
I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.
How can you possibly have an international agreement that's effective unless countries like China and India are not full participants?
I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.
This is an impressive crowd—the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.
I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you need to concentrate on.
There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again.
I'm telling you there's an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That's the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best.
I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand—but the president doesn't have a magic wand. You just can't say, "low gas."
Should the Iranian regime—do they have the sovereign right to have civilian nuclear power? So, like, if I were you, that's what I'd ask me. And the answer is, yes, they do.
General [Odierno], I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq.

Related pages: Famous Beauties, Famous Historical Beauties, Famous Courtesans, Famous Ingénues, Famous Hustlers, Famous Pool Sharks, Famous Rogues, Famous Heretics, Famous Hypocrites, Famous Forgers and Frauds, Famous Flops and Flubs, Famous Morons, The Dumbest Things Ever Said, Famous Last Words, Famous Insults

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