Bloopers: Speaches Part 1

The US may increase aid to the former Soviet Union by as much as a billion dollars to help stabilize the rubble.
Heard on a radio news report

"You mean the checks and balances?"
In a recent press interview, President Bush was asked to comment on the on-going scandals in the US ongress (ibouncing checks on congress' bank, and not paying their tabs at the congressional restaurants).

"The telephone company is urging people not to use the telephone unless it is absolutely necessary in order to keep the lines open for emergency calls. We'll be right back after this break to give away a pair of Phil Collins concert tickets to caller number 95."
A Los Angeles radio DJ shortly after the 1990 earthquake

"Federal Bureau of Investigation (718) 459-3140
If no answer call (718) 459-3140"
In NYNEX Telephone Directory:

"That's Paris, Ontario, not Paris, Italy."
Canadian host of a childrens' TV show telling their address:

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."
Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."
Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.

On Pesticides:
"Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway."
Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chordane

"The exports include thumbscrews and cattle prods, just routine items for the police."
Commerce Department spokesman on a regulation allowing the export of various products abroad

"Are you any relation to your brother Marv?"
Leon Wood, New Jersey Nets guard, to Steve Albert, Nets TV commentator

"If you can't make the putts and can't get the man in from second on the bottom of the ninth, you're not going to win enough football games in this league, and that's the problem we had today."
Sam Rutigliano, Cleveland Browns coach, on why his team lost

"Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued...Reason: it has been reported to our office that you expired on January 1, 1976."
Illinois Department of Public Aid

"That low-down scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass--and I'm just the one to do it."
a congressional candidate in Texas

MEMBERS AND NON-MEMBERS ONLY
sign outside Mexico City's Mandinga Disco in the Hotel Emporio

Wish--To end all the killing in the world
Hobbies--Hunting and fishing
from personal statistics of California Angel Bryan Harvey, flashed on the scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium

"He's trying to take the decision out of the hands of twelve honest men and give it to 435 Congressmen!"
Representative Charles Vanik of Ohio, when he heard that the indicted Spiro Agnew was asking to have his corruption case tried by the House instead of in a regular court

"In the early sixties, we were strong, we were virulent..."
John Connally, Secretary of Treasury under Richard Nixon, in an early seventies speech, as reported in a contemporary "American Scholar"

"At the Lincoln Park traps on Sunday...over 80 shooters took part in the program. Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself."
from Chicago Rotary Club journal, "Gyrator"

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe."
Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia

"I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."
Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries

"The crime bill passed by the Senate would reinstate the Federal death penalty for certain violent crimes: assassinating the President; hijackiing an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector."
Knight Ridder News Service dispatch

"After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school department is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post."
Philip Streifer, superintendent of schools, Barrington Rhode Island

"This is a great day for France!"
Richard Nixon, while attending Charles De Gaulle's funeral

"I am honored today to begin my first term as the Governor of Baltimore--that is, Maryland."
William Donald Schaefer, first inaugural address

"I am a jelly doughnut"
English translation of John F. Kennedy speaking at the Berlin Wall

"We pray for MacArthur's erection."
sign erected by Japanese citizens in Tokyo, when MacArthur was considering a run for President

"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

"If I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough I would be convinced that we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed."
Ronald Reagan

"My fellow Americans, I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
Ronald Reagan, before a radio broadcast, unaware that the microphone was already on

"Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we're going to succeed."
Ronald Reagan

"They're multipurpose. Not only do they put the clips on, but they take them off."
-Pratt & Whitney spokesperson explaining why the company charged the Air Force nearly $1000 for an ordinary pair of pliers.

"The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep."
-Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live

"We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."
-Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
-Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents

"When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results."
-Former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge

"It's like deja vu all over again."
-Yogi Berra

"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese"
-Former French President Charles De Gaulle

"The loss of life will be irreplaceable."
-Former U.S. Vice-President Dan Quayle on the San Francisco earthquake

"It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody."
- Richard M. Nixon

"The government is not doing enough about cleaning up the environment. This is a good planet."
-Mr. New Jersey contestant when asked what he would do with a million dollars.

"Things are more like they are now than they ever were before."
-Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

"A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money."
-Everett Dirksen

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
-Samuel Goldwyn

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."
-John Wayne

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."
- Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark

"Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the publicmind."
-General William Westmoreland

"If you let that sort of thing go on, your bread and butter will be cut right out from under your feet."
-Former British foreign minister Ernest Bevin

I'm not smart enough to lie.
-- Ronald Reagan

"I'm not against the blacks and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that."
Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona

"Nixon has been sitting in the White House while George McGovern has been exposing himself to the people of the United States."
Frank Licht, then governor of Rhode Island, campaigning for McGovern in 1972

"Retraction: The 'Greek Special' is a huge 18 inch pizza and not a huge 18 inch penis, as described in an add. Blondie's Pizza would like to apologize for any confusion Friday's ad may have caused."
correction printed in The Daily Californian

"Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!"
Jerry Coleman, Padres radio announcer

"I want you to take your balls in your hand and bounce them on the floor and then throw them as high as you can. Now, have you all got your balls in your hands?"
announcer of children's radio show "Life With Mother" to her audience

"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."
David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes.

"They gave me a book of checks. They didn't ask for any deposits."
Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank Scandal.

"He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech."
Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush wasn't following up on his campaign pledge that there would be no loss of wetlands.

"It depends on your definition of asleep. They were not stretched out. They had their eyes closed. They were seated at their desks with their heads in a nodding position."
John Hogan, Commonwealth Edison Supervisor of News Information, responding to a charge by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector that two Dresden Nuclear Plant operators were sleeping on the job.

"I didn't accept it. I received it."
Richard Allen, National Security Advisor to President Reagan, explaining the $1000 in cash and two watches he was given by two Japanese journalists after he helped arrange a private interview for them with First Lady Nancy Reagan.

"I was a pilot flying an airplane and it just so happened that where I was flying made what I was doing spying."
Francis Gary Power, U-2 reconnaissance pilot held by the Soviets for spying, in an interview after he was returned to the US.

"I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes."
President Richard Nixon

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."
Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

"Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself."
Chicago Rotary Club journal, "Gyrator".

"The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing."
Dizzy Dean explaining how he felt after being hit on the head by a ball in the 1934 World Series.

I would not have married Dan Quayle had I not thought he was an equal to me.
Marilyn Quayle

Go to part 2: Click here

This page hosted by

Get your own Free Home Page