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06 January 2010

10 Top Quotes of 2009 - Cheeky Quote Day! 6 Jan 2010

Political Cats!From Denny: Some of the cheekiest - most irreverent or most odd - quotes were uttered in the year of 2009 in America. There are times when I wonder if there are regions of the country with lead in the water, sounding as bizarre as ancient Rome did right before they destroyed their empire. The ancient Romans poisoned themselves with lead in their wine, unknowingly, that also sterilized them, dropping the population of the ruling aristocracy. Their increasing bizarre behavior is well documented historically and, of course, Hollywood celebrated it with many a movie. After all, villains are great story grist! :)

I knew there was a verbal bridge somewhere in here... more like a teetering wood suspension bridge in the Amazon... 2009 has been a very bizarre year for quotes from politicians in particular and a few celebrities too. Notice that Tiger Woods is noticeably silent. Maybe he's saving his quotes for 2010. Stay tuned...




Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty

1. "Do ya think?" he's: Holding Back

"He deserves my silence."

— George W. Bush, former President, refusing to criticize President Barack Obama during a speech in March, his first address since leaving office. Yet the Republicans didn't waste any time later in the year, propelling Bush out in front to take the fire for complaining about Obama's job performance and handling of terrorism issues.

Hmmmm... yes, Obama still deserves his silence. The man was a hack in the Presidency so what real advice could he offer? The majority of the time he never watched nor read the news, depending upon filtered information from jealous coveting-the-power aides like Rove.



Photo by Ross D. Franklin/Getty

2. Obama's Persistent Peanut Gallery (OPPG) throwing rotten tomatoes:

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

— Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, rambling all over the place on her Facebook page, whiner lying about a provision of the proposed health care bill that called for Medicare to reimburse doctors for counseling patients on end-of-life-care issues such as living wills and hospice availability. Somehow, she had reading comprehension problems and started screaming death panels are in the bill when clearly they are not.



3. Perilously Close on the Heels of Republican Retreads

"I'm happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum, from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested, and they have failed. And that's what part of the election in November was all about."

— President Obama, during his first official press conference, on 9 Feb 2009. What's annoying is when you follow such a disastrous act like Bush and Cheney who basically broke several world governments, is that you are forced to continue some of the same policies until you can stabilize a region, beginning new policies to repair all the damage.

So it goes in American politics for decades: Republicans like to blow up the world and Democrats come in behind them to clean up their mess. Then the public gets angry it takes too long to clean up the mess and choose Republicans again, thinking the economy will pick up. There is a real disconnect of the American voter with an understanding of just how long it takes to repair a mess and then gin up the economy.



4. The Commies Are Coming! The Commies Are Coming! Stay safe; hide under your school desk when the nukes hit. (Now there's a plan.)

"I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country. My question for you is, What are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created according to the Constitution?"

— Katy Abram, a Pennsylvania mother, speaking at a health care town hall moderated by Senator Arlen Specter in August in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. If this woman knew what she was talking about, understood economics, international diplomacy and common sense, and actually cared if women got equal pay for the same job, well, she would never have voted Republican in the first place. These guys are the ones who sent our country careening out of control financially for decades starting with President Reagan and his paranoid Star Wars concept.



5. Sad Prescient Epitaph of The King of Pop

" 'This Is It' really means this is it."

— Michael Jackson, pop star, in March as he announced his plans for a series of "final curtain call" concerts in London, slated for July. These performances would have been his first major live performances in 12 years, his parting gift to his loyal fans.

I remember seeing that news clip and had an inkling something odd was coming. Isn't it something how you can say or do something that later on people go, "Wow! I thought there was something about that!"



6. Straight from the heartless: Let Them Eat Tiramisu!

"They should see it like a weekend of camping."

— Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's Prime Minister, on the thousands of people left homeless by an April 6 earthquake that killed more than 300. This businessman billionaire is an embarrassment to the people of Italy. There are photos of him trying to hump a meter maid as she is giving a car a ticket, his wife is fed up with the mistresses and public humiliation and now he treats his countrymen with a cavalier dismissive wave of his royal hand of those who were suddenly left homeless and destitute.



7. Hillary not Bill is Secretary of State

"You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not Secretary of State."

— Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, during an August press conference in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, to a student who asked her, "What does Mr. Clinton think, through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton?" According to State Department officials, the student approached Clinton afterward and said he had meant to ask what "Mr. Obama" thought.

The Republican press gave Hillary a difficult time with this one. Well, she should have been insulted that everyone thinks she is channeling her husband's brain. She has always been her own woman. Come on.

A close friend of mine had an interesting conversation with a former Secret Service agent who protected the Clintons in house. She was known for throwing laundry baskets and other large objects at Bill whenever she found out about the latest sexual gaffe she was so frustrated with his personal lack of discipline. There were a lot of holes in the walls to be repaired in the residential wing. You go, girl! You think a woman with this kind of passion would actually be so meek as to offer up her husband's opinions? What are you smoking?



8. Confessions of a Late Show Fool: Letterman

"The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is, yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would, especially for the women."

— David Letterman, Late Show host, who admited on air, Oct. 1, to being fool enough to have affairs with female staffers. He chose to go public after revealing he was being blackmailed by CBS producer Robert Halderman. Now get this: Halderman actually thought he could blackmail a guy who is cheap? Come on; a cheap guy will take public humiliation any day over emptying his wallet. Bad call, Halderman, you lose!



Photo by Reuters

9. Screaming in the Silence

"I was shouting, but no one could hear me."

— Rom Houben is a Belgian man who was paralyzed in a car accident. His doctors presumed him to be in a coma - for 23 years! Recently, in a July journal article new evidence was revealed to doctors to the contrary. There are new scanning techniques that discovered Houben had normal brain function! The article details doctors realized this back in 2006. Houben, who cannot speak, now communicates using a special keyboard.

What a horror that must have been for him all these years. I wonder why it took three years to go public with the good news? Too much medical community embarrassment? Well, at least Houben is now getting what he needs to feel more plugged into the world. Considering the computer age now, he has considerably more mental and communicative mobility than was available to others in his situation in decades past. It does make you wonder how many other Houbens there are out there yet to be freed.



Bernie Madoff, scam artist who bilked billions from investors in a Ponzi scheme, photo by Mario Tama/Getty

10. Con Man Remorse?

"I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago."

— Bernie Madoff, Ponzi schemer extraordinaire, taking the con to new heights, in an SEC interview, finally released in October. This quote came from part of an SEC investigation into its failure to flush out Madoff's scam for 16 years - even though there was information sent to them to prove the scam.

This has to be one of the audacious quotes of the year. Now we are supposed to feel sorry for him that he felt oh, so burdened he had fleeced so many people and charitable organizations? Too weird for my world.

*** Feel free to use the graphics as they are free for your blog or site!

*** A reader needs your help to document a quotation by Logan Pearsall-Smith: "All our lives we are putting pennies - our most golden pennies - into penny-in-the-slot machines that are almost always empty." Do any of you know the title of the work? Email me: warriorspearl@gmail.com and I'll pass it on.

*** THANKS for visiting!
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