BEST QUOTES OF 2005
As part of my OCD, I wrote down all the outrageous, inspiring, offensive, enranging, insipid, bewildering, or hilarious statements made in 2005. Here are my favorites ...
ON KATRINA & THE WAVES
"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."
- President Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, while touring hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005
"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them."
- Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston
"What didn't go right?"
- President Bush, as quoted by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, after she urged him to fire FEMA Director Michael Brown "because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right" in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort
"I was impressed by [Michael Brown's] willingness to accept responsibility for how incompetent everyone else was. He candidly admitted he was too trusting, too able, too overskilled to deal with all the retards around him. Overall, Jon, a heartfelt and stirring you-a culpa."
- Rob Corddry, correspondent on The Daily Show
"You simply get chills every time you see these poor individuals...many of these people, almost all of them that we see are so poor and they are so black, and this is going to raise lots of questions for people who are watching this story unfold."
- CNN's Wolf Blitzer, on New Orleans' hurricane evacuees
"George Bush doesn't care about black people."
- Kanye West, live on NBC's Hurricane Katrina fundraiser
"The U.S. government announced it would not accept more than 300,000 meals donated to Hurricane Katrina victims by the British. A U.S. government spokesperson explained that the Katrina victims have suffered enough."
- Conan O'Brien
CURRENT EVENTS
"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."
- Sen. Bill Frist, diagnosing Terri Schiavo's condition during a speech on the Senate floor
"Reporter Bob Woodward testified this week that a White House informant revealed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to him weeks before her identity was disclosed. And, as he did during Watergate, Woodward nicknamed his informant after the day's most popular porno movie. Which has everyone wondering...just who is 'Anal Debutantes #34?'"
- Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
"I have more guts in my broken little finger than you have in your whole body."
- Emily Lyons, former director of nursing at the women's clinic that Eric Rudolph bombed in Birmingham, AL, who underwent 21 operations and lost sight in her left eye as a result of the explosion, in a statement to Rudolph the day he was sentenced to life in prison
"They're very well treated down there. They're living in the tropics. They're well fed."
- VP Dick Cheney, defending the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay
"According to the latest poll, only 2% of African Americans think President Bush is doing a good job. The percentage would have been higher, but Condoleezza Rice has a small family."
- Conan O'Brien
"I think the President should look across the country and find the most qualified man, woman, or minority."
- Senator Trent Lott, on Bush's potential Supreme Court nominee
"I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called."
-Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, urging President Bush to make public Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers's White House records
"Usually when I see a German guy on a balcony with an adoring throng underneath him, it tends to make me a little nervous."
- Dennis Miller, on the new Pope
"I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work."
- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress
"If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.'"
- FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, after San Francisco voted to ban military recruiters from city schools
"This is the kind of thing that I think separates the men from the boys in leadership. Do you have the testicular virility to make a decision like that, knowing what's coming your way? ... I say I do."
- Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, describing his decision to stand up to his father-in-law in a family feud that the governor says has culminated in a grand jury investigation
"Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood."
- Kim Jong Il
"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." -Bill Bennett, former Education Secretary and author of "The Book of Virtues"
"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."
- President Bush, to a divorced mother of three in Omaha, Nebraska
MISCELLANEOUS
"She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!"
- Joe Simpson's thoughts on daughter Jessica's breasts, as quoted in Blender Magazine
"AhhhhhhhhKellyClarkson!"
- Steve Carell, getting his chest waxed on The 40 Year-Old Virgin
"When a virgin screams your name, you know you've made it."
- Kelly Clarkson, on being asked whether it was the ultimate validation when Steve Carell screamed "AhhhhhhhKellyClarkson!"
"Please don't recount this vote."
- Al Gore, adhering to the Webby Awards' five-word limit on acceptance speeches, after receiving the group's Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in the development of the Internet
"Here's the problem. You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do. ... Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even-- you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is."
- Tom Cruise, going off on Matt Lauer on The Today Show
"I think I've found my limitations."
- President Bush, after injuring two fingers in a mountain-biking mishap when he crashed into a police officer in Scotland
"Big shout-out to everybody with sleep apnea, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure! I do that too."
- D12 rapper Bizarre's corpulent father, on MTV2's Bizarre Makes A Video
"When I first said that I wanted to put together a late-night comedy-writing team that would only be 80 percent Ivy League-educated Jews, people thought I was crazy. They said you need 90, 95 percent. But we proved 'em wrong."
- Jon Stewart, accepting an Emmy
"On True Lies, it was Tom Arnold who said he was going to be governor."
- James Cameron, discussing the stupid things actors say when they don't know they're being recorded, on Entourage
"I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."
- First Lady Laura Bush, at the White House Correspondents dinner
"The Country Music Awards were held right here in New York City for the first time ever. Isn't that nice? In a related story, this year's Soul Train Awards are being held in Salt Lake City."
- Conan O'Brien
"It is not a criticism, rather a suggestion that he do some exercises and go on a diet, don't you think? I'm doing this for the gentleman's health."
- Fidel Castro, describing Florida Governor Jeb Bush as President Bush's "fat little brother"
"You know what the problem is? The problem is that when people hear the term 'big brother,' they immediately think it’s bad or it’s scary. But I don’t, I think, 'l love my big brother!'
- Steve Carell, on instituting an email surveillance policy, on The Office
"[B]ecause my 10 MONTH OLD DAUGHTER HAD CHICKEN POX ALL LAST WEEK and given that my nanny bailed because her daughter doesn't have the pox, I pretty much was Mr. Mom and didn't have much time to blog (on either Poplicks or Soul Sides) because I was too busy giving my kid oatmeal baths and applying calamine lotion."
- Oliver Wang, responding to criticism about Poplicks not covering Tookie's execution
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