# Great political putdowns/zingers **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 1, 2007, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861 "2007-11-01T13:33:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/41 "2007-11-03T11:51:19Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Maybe it’s an Australian thing but I don’t get it. [/QUOTE] Say it slowly. “I’m a Country member” … “I’m a c\*\*t, remember …” ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/42 "2007-11-03T12:01:03Z")
I got these from ‘Quotations for our time’: ‘Politics has got so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to get beat’ - Will Rogers ‘Greater love hath no man than this - that he lay down his friends for his life’ - Jeremy Thorpe (about Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sacking 7 cabinet members) ‘There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionaries for dinner’ - H. L. Mencken ‘An elected official is one who gets 51% of the vote cast by 40% of the 60% of voters who registered’ - Dan Bennett ‘A political war is one in which everyone shoots from the lip’ - Raymond Moley ‘Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other’ Oscar Ameringer ‘My opponent resembles Lincoln - a short, fat, dishonest Lincoln!’ ‘An honest politican is one who will stay bought’ Simon Cameron ‘I’m not leftist - I’m where the righteous ought to be’ M. Coady ‘He knows nothing; he thinks he knows everything - that points to a political career’ George Bernard Shaw ‘Voters quickly forget what a man says’ Richard Nixon ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/43 "2007-11-03T12:32:29Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] [“Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba?.. Don’t wait for the translation! Yes or no?” Adlai Stevenson](http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/people/a_stevenson.html) [/QUOTE] I’m having a _Star Trek: Undiscovered Country_ flashback! ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/44 "2007-11-03T12:37:13Z")
Dorothy Parker on being told that “Silent Cal” Coolidge was dead: How can they tell? ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/45 "2007-11-03T20:05:28Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Maybe it’s an Australian thing but I don’t get it. [/QUOTE] It’s not a Australian thing. Say it slow and draw out each syllable. Then read the response. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/46 "2007-11-03T20:12:21Z")
Apparently he never said, but I’ve always like the quote attributed to Sen. Everett Dirksen: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/47 "2007-11-03T20:17:42Z")
I think this incident has the best political wordplay ever. During one of Adlai Stevenson’s presidential campaigns, he was to speak at a Houston Baptist convention. He was introduced with the remarks that he had been invited “just as a courtesy, because Dr. Norman Vincent Peale has already instructed us to vote for your opponent.” Stevenson stepped to the microphone and opened his speech with “Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.” (apocryphal) A woman to Adlai Stevenson: “You have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson: “That’s not enough, madam; we need a majority.” ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/48 "2007-11-03T21:37:16Z")
[QUOTE=Cicero] Sort of political. Margot Asquith to Jean Harlow who had mispronounced her name: “The T is silent, as in Harlow” (Her husband was Prime Minister of the UK) [/QUOTE] **Eve** is gonna come back and kick your ass… This “quote” is made up. Never happened. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/49 "2007-11-03T21:48:08Z")
[QUOTE=Rico] It’s not a Australian thing. Say it slow and draw out each syllable. Then read the response. [/QUOTE] I told him that, back up in post #41 and some hours before. Ya mean, he still hasn’t got it? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/50 "2007-11-03T23:05:15Z")
“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. “It’s good to be hated by the right people.” --Johnny Cash “Don’t get mad. Don’t get even. Just get elected, then get even.” --James Carville ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2007, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/51 "2007-11-03T23:07:22Z")
[QUOTE=Ice Wolf] I told him that, back up in post #41 and some hours before. Ya mean, he still hasn’t got it? [/QUOTE] Never know. I still haven’t got that I could be beat to the punch that quickly. Sorry, **Wolf**. Missed your post. ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/52 "2007-11-04T03:30:32Z")
[QUOTE=Rico] Never know. I still haven’t got that I could be beat to the punch that quickly. Sorry, **Wolf**. Missed your post. [/QUOTE] No worries. I only got in first because I was doing an all-nighter stuffing envelopes. 🙂 Between the two of us, I reckon we’ve explained the subtleties of the line well enough. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/53 "2007-11-04T04:09:03Z")
[QUOTE=Ice Wolf] Say it slowly. “I’m a Country member” … “I’m a c\*\*t, remember …” [/QUOTE] :eek: :eek: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/54 "2007-11-04T04:11:26Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] **Eve** is gonna come back and kick your ass… This “quote” is made up. Never happened. [/QUOTE] Well, someone better tell the editors of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. (1993 edition) ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/55 "2007-11-04T04:31:02Z")
[QUOTE=Rysto] Apparently he never said, but I’ve always like the quote attributed to Sen. Everett Dirksen: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” [/QUOTE] [This site](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/170.html) supports the claim. How does one go about disproving an attribution? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/56 "2007-11-04T04:58:59Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] I believe it was Clement Attlee who emerged from the empty cab. It should be pointed out that Churchill always denied making any such remark. [/QUOTE] Yes, I just looked it up and see that you’re right. My memory was off. Also attributed to Churchill, I just found: “He [Stanley Baldwin] occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.” “A sheep in sheep’s clothing.” (also about Attlee) “Who is this man whose name is neither one thing nor the other?” (of Alfred Bossom) “There but for the grace of God, goes God.” (of Stafford Cripps) “As far as I can see you have used every cliche except ‘God is Love’ and ‘Please adjust your dress before leaving.’” (responding to a report by Anthony Eden) And Lincoln, when accused of being two-faced, said, “If I had two faces, do you think I’d be wearing this one?” ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861/57 "2007-11-04T17:44:01Z")
[QUOTE=Oslo Ostragoth] > [@Rysto](#): > > Apparently he never said, but I’ve always like the quote attributed to Sen. Everett Dirksen: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” [This site](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/170.html) supports the claim. How does one go about disproving an attribution? [/QUOTE] The way you do it is to contact the [The Dirksen Center](http://www.dirksencenter.org/sitemap.htm) and then search for the quote (bottom, right “a billion here, a billion there…” and read. They haven’t found it and they have access to almost all things Dirksen. He still could have said it, but even with electronic searching of millions of newspaper pages, books, etc., no one has ever found it. [Fred Shapiro](http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/qyd/fred.asp) _has_ found the earliest(so far) similar quote, from the NYTimes, 10 Jan. 1938 > [@](#): > > Well, now, about this new budget. It’s a billion here and a billion there, and by and by it begins to mount up into money. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-political-putdowns-zingers/424861.md?page=2)