Top 10 Quotes of 2008
The Top 10 quotes of 2008, as compiled by the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations:
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1. “I can see Russia from my house!” — Comedian Tina Fey, while impersonating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the TV comedy show “Saturday Night Live,” broadcast Sept. 13.
2. “All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.” — Palin, responding to a request by CBS anchor Katie Couric to name the newspapers or magazines she reads, broadcast Oct. 1.
3. “We have sort of become a nation of whiners.” — former Sen. Phil Gramm, an economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, quoted in The Washington Times, July 10.
4. “It’s not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number.” — a Treasury Department spokeswoman explaining how the $700 billion number was chosen for the initial bailout, quoted on Forbes.com Sept. 23.
5. “The fundamentals of America’s economy are strong.” — McCain, in an interview with Bloomberg TV, April 17.
6. “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” — the Treasury Department’s proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, September 2008.
7. “Maybe 100.” — McCain, discussing in a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, how many years U.S. troops could remain in Iraq, Jan. 3.
8. “I’ll see you at the debates, b——.” — Paris Hilton in a video responding to a McCain television campaign ad, August 2008.
9. “Barack, he’s talking down to black people. … I want to cut his … off.” — Rev. Jesse Jackson, overheard over a live microphone before a Fox News interview, July 6.
10. (tie) “Cash for trash.” — Paul Krugman discussing the financial bailout, New York Times, Sept. 22.
10. (tie) “There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises.” — Krugman, in an interview with Bill Maher on HBO’s “Real Time,” broadcast Sept. 19.
10. (tie) “Anyone who says we’re in a recession, or heading into one — especially the worst one since the Great Depression — is making up his own private definition of “`recession.’” — commentator Donald Luskin, the day before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, The Washington Post, Sept. 14.
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Source:
Top ten quotes of 2008
NYPost, December 15th 2008, 9:48 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/12/15/2008-12-15_top_ten_quotes_of_2008.html
December 30th, 2008 at 9:05 am
to borrow a cliche, Priceless!
December 30th, 2008 at 9:28 am
That’s ridiculous. How biased can you be. They don’t even pretend to camouflage their slant. Half of the ‘best quotes from 2008′ are supposedly McCain/Palin? Talk about a complete and unabashed display of partisanship from Yale – or whoever put this thing together.
Of course there are no Obama or Biden(!) quotes in there – because Obama’s ‘57 states’, ‘muslim faith’ or Biden’s Barack America or Dunkin Donuts ‘Indian’ quotes are just so much less interesting than McCain’s ‘100 years’ quip.
Reading the headline of the post, I was interested to see what was included. At the end of the list, I felt like someone was just looking for one more venue to take a swipe at the Republican candidates. Childish, and the wrong outlet.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:30 am
How about this winner: “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’” Gee I wonder who said that- maybe another vice presidential candidate who is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I disagree with Krugman’s statement, although it sounds nice.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:45 am
CPJ13:
The victors write the history. With the actions of the (R) camp over the past decade, they have no shortage of fodder or inspiration. Lucky this list was limited to the past year.
December 30th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Really pleased you got in a good quote on Mr. Luskin, who is perhaps the most useless self-promoter of our time.
I am hopeful that eventually the meme “Luskin”, describing someone who is perennially wrong, will prevail.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:07 am
@MA:
Very true. I guess I was hoping for a better selection from a year where there are some doozeys to pick from. The inclusion of McCain/Palin in half the slots of the top 10 portends that the actual goal of this list-writer was not to truly assemble the 10 greatest quotes from this year, but to make a political statement.
I’m sick of it both ways… it’s shameful we can’t find a better way to govern for the greater good. Sometimes I feel that the momentum of government corruption, nonfeasance and activism will be impossible to stop civilly.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:26 am
CPJ13: Sometimes the truth hurts. Get over it. The Republican party should be sent into the desert for for a long time to do some serious soul searching.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:26 am
CPJ13 Says:
December 30th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Get a life for godsake. These were all memorable and/or memorably funny. Look on the bright side, at least Bush didn’t make the list this year.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:37 am
“I am hopeful that eventually the meme “Luskin”, describing someone who is perennially wrong, will prevail.”
Some competitors for “A Luskin”
A Kristol
A Learah
A Hassett
A Cramer
A Morris
A Stein (I’m surprised one of his quotes which equated the furtherance of science with the Holocaust didn’t make the list)
Any suggestions?
December 30th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Here’s a memorable Obama quote for CPJ13:
“Yes We Can!”
December 30th, 2008 at 11:08 am
A very America-centric list — most of these don’t deserve notice.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Garry, good day.
One would hope the responses to line 6 would be substantially more quotable than the line itself. My “WTF?” was pretty lame, I am sure, in comparison to what some members of our Congress (hopefully) said.
Best regards,
RF
December 30th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Barry, the word is Barry.
Ozone time here on the Left Coast.
Sorry.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
@ottovbvs:
A Roubini – an unheeded prophet of doom, See Jeremiah
December 30th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKc4XFK0iVY
Some folks have bigger rakes than others… lol…
December 30th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I absolutely LOVE the fact that Luskin’s stuff is getting some wider attention. This man is danger to anyone’s finances. I cannot believe he actually gets paid to offer opinions on anything financially related.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Man, does anyone really care what the NYT has to say anymore? I guess people on the left never say anything stupid.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
The quotes you missed:
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
- Barack Obama
“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
- Barack Obama
“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.
I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”
- Barack Obama
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand
people died and an entire town destroyed.”
- Barack Obama
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed,”
- Joe Biden
“We are going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
-Hillary Clinton
“I’ve now been in 57 states — I think one left to go.”
- Barack Obama
“And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians — they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities — the Iranians.”
- Nancy Pelosi
“As a United States Senator, I would never ask or expect to be treated differently than anyone else refinancing their home…Just like millions of Americans, we shopped around and received competitive rates.”
- Christopher Dodd
I don’t want to set a precedent that bankruptcy now is a way in which you undo what gains unions have been able to hold on to.
- Barney Frank
“In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.”
Harry Reid
December 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Barry,
What is the matter with you? The election is over. What do the top 10 quotes have to do with the economy or investing? I realize it is your blog….but really? And this list is the top 10?
December 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Jesus Murphy, you could make an entire list from Chris Cox or Luskin alone, not to mention the vast majority of any other guest on Kudlow & Company or Cramer’s hourly rant. I just hope that people remember these morons and fraudsters. Not only were they disingenuous and/or shown to be incompetent, but many of them deliberately and purposefully did their utmost to obfuscate and maintain opacity at the public’s expense.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
“There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises.”
Yeah, let’s just pretend like Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and the entire Austrian School don’t even exist. God, what an asshole.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
How about,
“More debt will get us out of this, trust us.” -Paul Krugman, Barack Obama, the editorial staff of the Financial Times, and every other neo-Keynesian in existence.
Maybe that will be the quote of 2008 about five years from now, *after* Keynesian policies have finally resulted in sovereign default or hyperinflation.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
10. (tie) “There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises.” — Krugman, in an interview with Bill Maher on HBO’s “Real Time,” broadcast Sept. 19.
I hadn’t heard that one before but it is true…….LIBERTARIANS WOULDN’T GET US INTO A FINANCIAL CRISIS IN THE FIRST PLACE!
“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.
I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”
- Barack Obama
Did he really say that? I guess you could paraphrase his whole message down to that couldn’t you? It really does sound funny when you look at it from that perspective. Thanks for a great laugh
December 30th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
how about this quote attributed to quite a few average Joes in the midst of the crisis and bailout talk:
“What if the government just gave us all a million dollars? That would solve everything.”
December 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
@ otto, stevec:
Relax fellas. I was pointing out how stupid and politically skewed this top 10 list was, not trying to start a yahoo-esque debate along party lines. Your boy won. Enjoy it. Chill out.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
The best the Yalies can come up with is low-hanging fruit like Sarah Palin and Donald Luskin?
Reminds me of the observation by William F Buckley that he’d rather be governed by the first thousand names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty at Harvard. Substitute Yale for Harvard…you get the picture.
No matter. Yale has the “best and brightest” and so does the incoming administration. And so did the outgoing administration.
I’d rather be governed by the first thousand names in the Knoxville, Tennessee phone book. At least there you might have a chance to find a political descendant of Andrew Jackson who’d have balls like Jackson did in shutting down the 2nd United States Bank. A guy like that in charge and there wouldn’t be even the remote possibility of a Treasury department that would consider what they tried, and more or less accomplished, in #6.
And #6 is the only one that’s relevant. With hardly a peep from the sheeple, we have centralized and nationalized our economy until everything that guys like Jackson, Jefferson, et al., stood for is lost. We’ve traded freedom for the illusion of security, all because the “best and brightest” said we should.
Incidentally, the phrase “best and brightest” was coined by David Halberstam as a sardonic reference to the worship of intellect over wisdom and where that got us in Vietnam.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
CPJ13 and Tom K, you can’t argue with Libs using logic, emotions are what counts to lefties (IMO). BTW, Tom K has the best list.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Graphite, check out this blog. Very good.
Krugman would be well served by visiting it and reviewing this write up.
http://stefanmikarlsson.blogspot.com/2008/12/krugman-teetotaller-hangovers-austrian.html
December 30th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Can someone give me a REAL explanation as to why Luskin is EVER on TV, especially on Kudlow? I mean, has anyone asked Kudlow this? Surely there has to be a real reason (please spare me the “he’s got pictures of someone” explanations..I need to know who or why he’s on TV and not me!)
December 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
“LIBERTARIANS WOULDN’T GET US INTO A FINANCIAL CRISIS IN THE FIRST PLACE!”
How can you know?
Or, perhaps, this,
An asset or credit bubble would never happen because we would have an economy akin to that of the Dark Ages in Europe. The wealthy would be sheltered in their walled estates with their shotguns and AK-47s for protection, while everybody else scratches out a dog-eat-dog, Mad Max existence outside.
And
““My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.
I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”
- Barack Obama
Did he really say that? I guess you could paraphrase his whole message down to that couldn’t you? It really does sound funny when you look at it from that perspective.”
Is it not possible for the USA to be greatest nation in a larger, historical sense and still have room for improvement / change? Especially when the W administration has significantly diminished our greatness over the past 8 years?
It may be a humorous statement, but that humor is not based on its substance, only a misinterpretation of it.
I think Krugman’s quote is the best on the list: it implies what is always true – when there is real trouble in the country (economic, natural disaster, or war), we always look to the government for help. Who else is going to help us, John Galt?
There are some who do not waiver in their belief in free-markets and no government intervention, but those in power know that in times of crisis such pipe dreams are not useful in resolving it.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I went to Google to search Donald Luskin, and — I swear — one of the Google drop-downs was “donald luskin stupidest man alive.” Apparently a few thousand people actually entered that phrase to search.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
“when there is real trouble in the country (economic, natural disaster, or war), we always look to the government for help”
“Always” makes this an untrue statement. Had it always been true, this country would never have been founded. I’ll concede it is mostly true today, as we’ve become a bunch of whiney, spoiled, lazy, infantile brats that wish others to do for us what we refuse to do for ourselves.
There was a time not so long ago (pre-FDR) when the first place a man turned in the time of trouble was himself. Failing that, he’d reach out to his family. Failing that, his local community. Before FDR, he’d never dream that somebody in Washington was standing by for succor.
It is only relatively lately that the first place to turn for help has become the Federal government. Is this a better method of dealing with problems? I would say no. I would say that it robs a man of initiative and makes him a slave to forces beyond his control. No more than he can control the weather, can a man control the federal government. Better that he tries to plan for the worst and hope for the best, all the while realizing that no government can save him from himself, but better, that he’d rather it never tried, because it robs him of all his humanity in the process.
This idea that a government is the panacea for the human condition is the very essence of our problems.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Curmudgeon:
Actually you don’t have to retire to northern Alabama…you seem way too smart for that. You have my permission to retire to East Tennessee, saving you from the pain of being a Tide fan….
December 30th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
The Curmudgeon Says:
“There was a time not so long ago (pre-FDR) when the first place a man turned in the time of trouble was himself. Failing that, he’d reach out to his family. Failing that, his local community. Before FDR, he’d never dream that somebody in Washington was standing by for succor.”
I certainly don’t disagree in principle about self-reliance being the best way to live; I have always tried to do it myself. But in a time of crisis, now, when many people divorced from the land, how can they be self-reliant and sustain themselves?
My father, who grew up in the GD, sometimes spoke of people living in the “poor farm” or sometimes “poor house”. I should have quizzed him more about it, but, due to youthful lack of interest, I didn’t. Now I often wonder what were these poor farms? Who funded them? How did they work? And why don’t we have them now?
I don’t know if they were pre- or post-FDR, but I suspect they were both and did not receive Federal funds. I think such a thing would be good now; the destitute could go there and grow their own food, and work to prepare it, and do all the work that needs to be done to maintain the place.
The preferred method now of just giving people money does foster dependence on the government rather than self-reliance, and I agree this method is wrong.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
What a pitifully poorly compiled list. Nothing really special about any of them except nº11, that is obviously not Krugman’s. These were probably the first 12 quotes the author found on a 5 minute google that he decided to call the “top 10 quotes of 2008″. I’m with the previous posters who argue this did not deserve to get posted.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I sure hope Larry buys Don some new tee-shirts this year.
He can use his old ones while working in Larry’s mustard seed garden.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Tom K Says: December 30th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Tom,
I hear your point, and with that, no doubt..
Though, keep in mind the usefulness of “The Two-Minutes Hate”–there’s little better, for distraction, than working up a Froth over Phantoms–the Past, another Path..
With that, wide coverage of a list, like yours, would startle the herd, keep them from their contented cud-chewing and soft-mooing, and runs the risk of, further, decreasing Milk output..
We know our Shepherds hate that S*it.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
“Though, keep in mind the usefulness of “The Two-Minutes Hate”–there’s little better, for distraction, than working up a Froth over Phantoms–the Past, another Path..”
Or other phantoms; perhaps the hatred and fear-mongering of a commie behind every tree, WMDs, and the ever present possibility of a terrorist attack?
December 30th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
KJ,
see: ” I beg leave to consider the circumstances of the Union antecedent to the meeting of the Convention at Philadelphia. We have been told of phantoms and ideal dangers to lead us into measures which will, in my opinion, be the ruin of our country. If the existence of those dangers cannot be proved, if there be no apprehension of wars, if there be no rumors of wars, it will place the subject in a different light, and plainly evince to the world that there cannot be any reason for adopting measures which we apprehend to be ruinous and destructive.”
excerpted from a speech of William Grayson, June 11, 1788
http://www.wepin.com/articles/afp/afp02.html
Grayson was, hardly, the First to recognize that ‘Phantoms’–of any Stripe, anywhere Found–were, mere, tools to lever the Minds of the Cowed..
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/search/Search.aspx?By=0&SearchBy=4&Word=cowed
December 30th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
I have to agree with most of the posters here. i have no clue as to why BR would post it. i think we got the point Barry, The GOP lost the election, Bush was a horrible POTUS, and your boy Obama is the new POTUS. Let’s move on from here and talk stocks and economics.
I have to say your post yesterday about Bush’s approval rating within the GOP:
“It raises the question: Short of being caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, what does President Bush need to do for this group to disapprove of his performance? Is there anything?”
You’ve stooped to new low levels with that question. WTF were you thinking when you wrote that? You do a wonderful job with the site, and I am sure you spend alot of time with the site to make it what it is today. But that BS has got to stop.
December 31st, 2008 at 12:58 am
BR’s ‘ridiculous’ filter usually catches garbage like this… yet this one somehow slipped through. Let’s put together a REAL list of asinine quotes from 2008, without a blatant political slant – it’s not like there’s a shortage of candidates.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:05 am
>> … Obama’s ‘57 states’
This is a tired person with a slip of the tongue.
>> “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and
This is a person explaining the way FDR immediately used the medium of the day — albeit radio instead of television — to stay in contact with America.
…
What’s different about the Palin statements that she “knows foreign policy because Putin flies over Alaska airspace while on the way to Washington” is that she pressed her case with variations of that same statement. It was not a slip of the tongue. It was the outright stupidity of a poorly educated person.
On her “reading material”, she was pressed in a very polite manner and given plenty of opportunity to elaborate. She chose not to do that and chose not to explain why either.
…
Basically, you could describe Biden’s and Obama’s errors as “verbal typos” and describe Palin’s gaffes as “defining her”.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:12 am
Same goes with McCain’s and Gramm’s statements. Their statements weren’t just 1 in 10,000 statements they made that day. These were their official statements. McCain reiterated his “economy is fine” position even after officially distancing himself from Gramm’s statement on the same subject.
I don’t know what’s not to get here, my dear Republican citizens. If you don’t see the distinctions between the Dem gaffes and the Rep gaffes, then how are we going to roll back the party from its Pat-Robertson-University present to its Goldwater past?
December 31st, 2008 at 11:22 am
@wunsacon
“verbal typos” ? Joe Biden must be the biggest buyer of verbal White Out.
“Ten thousand people died and an entire town destroyed.” – And I suppose the word “thousand” was a “verbal typo”?