DID HE JUST SAY THAT?

TOP 10 UNFORTUNATE POLITICAL ONE-LINERS

Richard M. Nixon 1973 - "I am not a crook."
On November 17, 1973, President Richard Nixon infamously denied any involvement in the Watergate scandal with his now timeless defense.
Thing is, he was.


Bill Clinton 1998 - "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
With those words, President Clinton didn't just dig himself a hole, he stole a backhoe, dug a really deep hole, drove the backhoe into the hole, wired the backhoe with explosives and blew it up. Strenuously denying his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky at a January press conference, Clinton was later impeached by the House of Representatives for lying about the matter under oath.


George H.W. Bush 1988 - "Read my lips: no new taxes."
That pledge was the centerpiece of Bush's acceptance address, written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, for his party's nomination at the 1988 Republican National Convention. It was a strong, decisive, bold statement, and you don't need a history degree to see where this is going. As presidents sometimes must, Bush raised taxes. His words were used against him by then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in a devastating attack ad during the 1992 presidential campaign.


John McCain 2008 - "The fundamentals of the economy are strong."
Senator McCain was probably trying to be reassuring, as Presidents ought to be in times of turmoil and stress. Yet, when investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy hours after he made this statement during the 2008 campaign, McCain looked shockingly out of
touch. His opponent, Barack Obama, wasted no opportunity to repeat McCain's statement, a particularly effective attack as the economy went further and further south.


Jimmy Carter 1976 - "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."
The decision to do an interview with Playboy magazine was possibly not the best call of President Carter's tenure. Yet, it was all going pretty well until he started talking about the Bible and adultery. Now, Carter's not actually admitting anything shocking. Most men would probably say, "Yep, been there." But presidents rarely (and for good reason) venture into the land of "too much information" : Ideally, they should exist on a higher plane than the rest of us. It was an
uncomfortable moment for America.


Mark Foley 1998 - "It's vile. It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."
This quote is more ironic than a whole double-CD album of Alanis Morrissette songs. Republican Rep. Mark Foley, having uttered this gem at the height of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, was brought down by an addiction to sexually explicit text messages to male congressional pages. It's like rain on your wedding day.


Lyndon B. Johnson 1964 - "We still seek no wider war."
President Johnson announced to the nation after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August, 1964 that the U.S. would not rise to the bait after what was considered a provocative attack from Hanoi. While the American government claimed that North Vietnamese warships had attacked U.S. vessels in the Gulf, it later turned out to be the opposite. The Vietnam escalation followed shortly thereafter.


Bill Clinton 1998 - "That depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."
The lowest point in President Clinton's public life, the Sept. 1998 release of the Ken Starr report also provided what might have been the lowest and most desperate of legal defenses: Clinton reached new depths of word-parsing during his videotaped August 17 testimony in front of a grand jury. Until then, America hadn't been sure there was more than one definition of "is." Just to be clear, there isn't.


Herbert Hoover 1929 - "The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis."
Thus declared President Hoover on Oct. 25, 1929. Sound familiar? Four days later, the stock market crashed, depression followed and Hoover became a joke. And yet all of this seemed to have been news to John McCain.


Richard Nixon 1973 - "You know, I always wondered about that taping equipment but I'm damn glad we have it, aren't you?"
President Nixon actually said this to Watergate co-conspirator H.R. Haldeman in April 1973, weeks before the U.S. Senate began its nationally televised hearings. Oh, Tricky Dick, you so crazy.


Deep Tots:

• 90% of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at...

• A picture can paint a thousand plot, thy words could be hazardous. Make no mistake...

• Any of the liners and incidents familiar to us Malaysians? Was it just a conincident?
  

• Malay infamous line - "Kerana pulut santan binasa, kerana mulut badan binasa"