Quotable quotes? Or shocking, attention-grabbers for the mass media?

                                  

So I was stumbling the interwebs the other day and happened upon a compilation of the 50 dumbest quotes from each side of the political spectrum.  The articles are titled 50 Dumb Liberal Quotes and Top 50 Dumb Conservative Quotes.  The articles caught my attention for two reasons.  The first reason, as you'll read an excerpt from each article, is because they are truly funny, wacky quotes.  The second reason the articles caught my attention is because I've heard many of the quotes repeated many times throughout various media outlets.  I wanted to question why the mass media would put forth these quotes as news.  Is is to inform their audience?  Is it to degrade a particular political party?  Or is it to simply grab attention?

In each of the articles the speaker of each individual quote are hyper-linked to lead readers to the contextual nature (press release, blog, public appearance) of the quote.  Take a look.

20 of the top 50 dumbest liberal quotes, as ranked by Jenny Erikson of Cafemom.com.

1. Sheryl Crow on Environmentalism: "I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares [sic] of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.'"

2. Joe Biden on culturalism: "In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

3. Whoopi Goldberg on 43-year-old Roman Polanski raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and [sic] when they let him out he was like "You know what this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail I'm not staying, so that's why he left."

4. Joy Behar on Economics: "Isn't it a little racist to call it Black Friday?"

5. John Conyers on the Health Care Bill, which he voted for: "I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill ... What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?'"

6. Former DNC Chairman Donald Fowler on possible delay of RNC convention due to Hurricane Gustav: "Plus they think the hurricane's going to hit (starts laughing) New Orleans about the time they start. The timing, at least it appears now, that it'll be there Monday. That just demonstrates God's on our side" 

7. Barack Obama: "I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go?"  

8. John Kerry on the troops: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

9. Howard Dean: "We know that no one person can succeed unless everybody else succeeds."

10. Rosie O'Donnell: "Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers." 

11. Al Gore: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

12. Congressman Hank Johnson on Guam: "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,"

13. Alan Grayson on Health Care: "The Republican health care plan: don't get sick ... The Republicans have a back up plan in case you do get sick ... This is what the Republicans want you to do. If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly!"

14. Nancy Pelosi on the economy: "every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs."  

15. Helen Thomas: Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland. 

16. Wanda Sykes: "I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight ... Rush Limbaugh -- I hope the country fails. I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a waterboarding, that's what he needs."

17. Bill Clinton on ordinary Americans: "African Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do."

18. Barack Obama on a tornado that killed twelve people: "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died - an entire town destroyed"

19. Harry Reid on Iraq: "This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything."

20. Kanye West: "George Bush doesn't care about black people.

And now 20 of the top 50 dumbest conservative quotes, according to Sasha Brown-Worsham of Cafemom.com.

 "When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal." ~ Richard M. Nixon

 "We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." ~ President George W. Bush

 "The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them." ~ Rush Limbaugh

''My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.'' ~ South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, arguing against government food assistance for poor residents.

"The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews." ~ Jerry Falwell

 ''Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you.'' ~ Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina)

''We need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets." ~ Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." ~ George W. Bush

''Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.'' ~ Rush Limbaugh

"I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Chanukah." ~President George W. Bush

"Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.'' ~ Rep. Michelle Bachmann

''The greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or even another terrorist attack. The greatest threat to America is a liberal media bias.'' ~ Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

"He is purple - the gay-pride color, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle - the gay pride symbol." ~ Jerry Falwell's warning to parents that "Tinky Winky," a character on Teletubbies, may be gay

"Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts." ~ Dan Quayle

''The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.'' ~ Pat Robertson

"Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate." ~ Sarah Palin

"'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' 'wee-wee'd up.' English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!'" ~ Sarah Palin

"Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the Ten Commandments." ~ Sarah Palin

"What I don't know is what the unexpected might be." ~ John McCain

"We have a lot of work to do. It's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border." ~ John McCain (the countries share no common border)

So what do you think?  Do the mass media use these types of quotes with any malice toward the individual speaker?  Are any of you looking at these quotes and saying to yourself, "I remember that funny quote, but I have no idea when, where, or why the individual said it".  Should the quote stick with you?  Or should the context be what's important?




sources:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1symGm/thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/109417/50_dumb_liberal_quotes%253Fdirect

http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/109323/top_50_dumbest_conservative_quotes