He was as great as a man can be without morality.67
—ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Yeah, we’re friends. Like Hitler and Mussolini.
She spends her day powdering her face till she looks like a bled pig.
—MARGOT ASQUITH
He strains his conversation through a cigar.
—HAMILTON MABIE
U2 lead singer Bono met with President Bush at the White
House. Bono urged the President to help the world’s poor.
Bush urged Bono to get back with Cher.
—TINA FEY
Match the Insult to the Politician68
Abraham Lincoln
Henry Clay
Margaret Thatcher
Winston Churchill
Henry Kissinger
Thomas Jefferson
They are not fit to manage a whelk stall.
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad name.
He is ignorant, passionate, hypocritical, corrupt; and easily swayed by the basest men who surround him.
If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.
I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was—an Arctic region covered with ice.
—STEVE MARTIN
A man was walking in the woods and came to a cottage where the walls were covered with clocks. He asked the woman who owned the cottage what all the clocks were for. She replied that everyone in the world had a clock, and every time you told a lie your clock advanced a second. He saw a clock that was hardly moving, and when he remarked about it he was told that it was Mother Teresa’s. He then asked where Bill Clinton’s clock was. The woman replied, “It’s in the kitchen—we’re using it as a ceiling fan.”
He is nothing more than a well-meaning baboon.
—GENERAL GEORGE McCLELLAN ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN
He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea and that was wrong.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Snarkin’ the News
Virginia state delegate Bob Marshall stated recently that “kids born ... with handicaps” are God’s revenge for an earlier abortion. I’m thinking he’s God’s revenge for evolution.
A North Carolina Congressman is trying to replace Grant on the $50 bill with Ronald Reagan. He has support, but, if it passes, it would mean that you could only spend it on the military or give it to huge corporations.
U.S. Representative Eric Massa resigned recently, and his male coworkers are just tickled pink about it. Word was he was quite hard on the members of his staff.
Iran claims it now has uranium with 20 percent purity, to which the White House has responded, “No you don’t.” ... Acting WMD assessor Stevie Wonder confirmed that position.
Sarah Palin was recently hired to do FOX News. In a related story, Natasha and Boris were hired to do Moose and Squirrel news.
The Germans have developed a technology that steers a car according to where the driver’s eyes are looking. Keep that away from Congress or the women of Washington are doomed.
More military news: An eight-year-old boy was drafted into the Ukrainian army. His parents alerted the authorities but the boy was still required to show up at the conscription center. After taking the intelligence test, they made him a colonel.
If you’re so pro-life, do me a favor: don’t lock arms and block medical clinics. If you’re so pro-life, lock arms and block cemeteries.
—BILL HICKS
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Bill Clinton’s foreign policy experience is pretty much
confined to having had breakfast once at the International
House of Pancakes.
—PAT BUCHANAN
The cruelest thing that has happened to
Lincoln since he was shot by Booth was to fall
into the hands of Carl Sandburg.
—EDMUND WILSON
The Earl of Sandwich told John Wilkes, “You, Mr. Wilkes, will die either of the pox or on the gallows.” Wilkes’s response: “That depends, my lord, whether I embrace your mistress or your principles.”
A sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Republicans are so empty-headed, they wouldn’t make a good landfill.
—JIM HIGHTOWER
He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul.
—DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
Winston Churchill
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
He’s a sheep in sheep’s clothing.
He’s a modest little person, with much to be modest about.
There but for the grace of God, goes God.
Well, I think we ought to let him hang there.
Let him twist slowly, slowly in the wind.
—JOHN EHRLICHMAN ONJOHN DEAN69
His smile is like the silver plate on a coffin.
—JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN
They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.
—THOMAS BRACKETT REED
69 So thought Haldeman about Liddy, Liddy about Dean, and Dean about Ehrlichman ... and around it goes.
A woman is driving along when the car in front of her hits the brakes suddenly, and she plows into it. An extremely short man gets out, looks at the damage, and says, “I’m not happy ...” “Well, which one are you?” the woman replies.
Being attacked by him is like being savaged by a dead sheep.
—DENNIS HEALY
Cop Snark
I can’t reach my license unless you hold my beer.
Sorry, Officer, I didn’t realize my radar detector wasn’t plugged in.
Aren’t you that guy from the Village People?
Hey, you must have been doin’ at least 120 mph to keep up with me ... Good job!
Excuse me ... is “stick up” hyphenated?
I almost decided to be a cop, but I decided to finish high school instead.
Bad cop! No doughnut!
You’re not gonna check the trunk, are you?
Didn’t I see you get your ass kicked on Cops?
Is it true that people become cops because they’re too dumb to work at McDonald’s?
So, uh, you on the take, or what?
I was trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around—that’s how far ahead of me they are.
What do you mean, “Have I been drinking?” You’re the trained specialist.
Hey, can you give me another one of those full cavity searches?
Americans have different ways of saying things; they say “elevator,” we say “lift”; they say “President,” we say “stupid psychopathic git.”
—ALEXEI SAYLE
A four-hundred-dollar suit on him would look like socks on a rooster.
—EARL LONG
To err is Truman.—A popular joke in 1946
Snarkin’ the News
A fifty-one-year-old Florida woman with cancer robbed a bank recently because “it was on my bucket list.” ... what, just above “die in prison”?
Doesn’t it sometimes feel like you’re in the middle of a joke? Three women were arrested for showing up at a drug hearing carrying drugs. Included was a tourniquet, a syringe, a copious amount of pills, and some hash. Why not wear T-shirts that say “We have drugs”? Did they think the term “drug test” was going to be an oral exam? Or that the authorities would test their drugs for them, you know, for quality? Yikes.
&nb
sp; A group of Hasidic women chased down a twelveyear-old mugger, took his gun, and held him until the police came. When they finally arrived, the boy screamed, “Please, please take me to jail, I can’t stand the guilt anymore!”
Recently, a man was found bleeding from the head and, when asked what happened, told police he was pistol-whipped by his drug connection for trying to pay him with Monopoly money. Guess the dealer wanted Boardwalk and the two utilities as well.
The town of Weed in California was the scene of the arrest of an outdoor writer who was running an enormous pot business out of his barn. I’m thinking a town called Weed would be the last place I would ’ve set that up, no? The town has a population of 3,000 people and boasts 187 fast-food joints.
Obscure reference #1: Jerry Brown is going to run for governor of California again and downloads of Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good” have gone through the roof.
He’s like the little man on top of the wedding cake.
—HAROLD ICKES
He is just about the nastiest little man I’ve ever known.
He struts sitting down.
—LILLIAN DYKSTRA ABOUT THOMAS DEWEY
The youthful sparkle in his eyes is caused by his contact lenses, which he keeps highly polished.
—SHEILA GRAHAM ABOUT RONALD REAGAN
He is brilliant—to the top of his boots.
—DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
—PAUL KEATING
A guy walks past a mental hospital and hears a moaning voice “13 ... 13 ... 13 ... 13” ... The man looks over, sees a hole in the wall, looks through the hole and gets poked in the eye. “14 ... 14 ... 14 ... 14.”
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
He’s very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head.
—MARGOT ASQUITH
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog69
To an overweight person: “Are you a separatist? Maybe you should try separating yourself from doughnuts first.”
To a French person: “Pardon me, I only know your basic French expressions like ‘I surrender.’”
To a political consultant: “Here, I’ll talk to your butt ... I’m sorry, I forgot which side the poop comes out of.”
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—ARISTOPHANES
Sports
Golf appeals to the idiot in us, and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.
—JOHN UPDIKE
LIKE MANY AMERICANS, I love sports. Not all, mind you ... just the good ones. Inevitably, when I do get the time to settle back and watch an entire game (usually in a bar), my snark meter always goes off when I hear the idiotic interviews with key players or the insipid commentary from the broadcasters trying to fill the air. Banter has been made banal.
Sports and competition has always brought out that side of people that opens a clear path to snark, on the field and off. The quotes in this chapter shows that a sharp tongue can be a great weapon. Play ball!
Baseball without fans is like Jayne Mansfield without a sweater. Hang on, that can be taken two ways.
—RICHARD NIXON
Back in 1961 the Cincinnati Reds had a Venezuelan shortstop named Elio Chacón, whose command of the English language was limited, and a Cuban coach named Reggie Otero with much better bilingual skills. The story is that one day an umpire made a questionable call adverse to Chacón and the Reds and Chacón went into a tirade in Spanish. The umpire asked Otero, “Did he just call me what I think he called me?” and Otero replied, “Oh no, he doesn’t know enough English to call you what you are,” and with that the umpire threw Otero out of the game.
Bruce Benedict is so slow he’d finish third in a race with a pregnant woman.
—TOMMY LASORDA
If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
—JACK LEMMON
Terry Bradshaw is so dumb, he couldn’t spell
C–A–T if you spotted him the C and the A.
—THOMAS HENDERSON
Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four Fs and one D: “Son, looks to me like you’re spending too much time on one subject.”
Dick Cheney’s defense is that he was aiming at a quail when he shot the guy. Which means that Cheney now has the worst aim of anyone in the White House since Bill Clinton
—JAY LENO, COMMENTING ON THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S
HUNTING MISHAP, WHEN HE SHOT HIS FRIEND
INSTEAD OF A BIRD
What has four legs and no ears?
Mike Tyson’s dog.
Match the Insult to the Athlete70
Muhammed Ali
Torii Hunter
Roy Keane
George Best
Maria Sharapova
John McEnroe
You were a crap player, you are a crap manager. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are manager of my country and you’re not even Irish, you English ****. You can stick it up your bollocks.
I’m not the next [Anna] Kournikova—I want to win matches.
Joe Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the U.S. Bureau of Wildlife.
What problems do you have, apart from being unemployed, a moron, and a dork?
He cannot kick with his left foot, he cannot head a ball, he cannot tackle, and he doesn’t score many goals. Apart from that he’s all right.
Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?
Putting allows the touchy golfer two to four opportunities to blow a gasket in the short space of two to forty feet.
—TOMMY BOLT
What’s the difference between a three-week-old puppy and a sportswriter? In six weeks, the puppy stops whining.
—MIKE DITKA
What’s the penalty for killing a photographer?
One stroke or two?
—PRO GOLFER DAVIS LOVE III
Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at.
—JIMMY DEMARET
Golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money,
money, money. I just want to play the game, drink
Pepsi and wear Reebok.
—SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
Sammy Davis was playing golf when the pro asked him his handicap. He replied, “I’m blind in one eye and a Jew.”
The people who gave us golf and called it a game are the
same people who gave us bagpipes and called it music.
As a boxer, he floats like a butterfly
and stings like one, too.
I would like to thank the press from the heart of my bottom.
—NICK FALDO AFTER WINNING THE 1992 OPEN
I’m not saying my golf game went bad, but if I grew tomatoes, they’d come up sliced.
—LEE TREVINO
Mr. Agnew, I believe you have a slight swing in your flaw.
—JIMMY DEMARET TO SPIRO T. AGNEW
Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison: “Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton.”71
Reporter to George Foreman after 1994 win against Michael Moorer: “Was the fight fixed?” Foreman’s response: “Sure the fight was fixed. I fixed it with a right hand.”
Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: “That’s so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes.”
Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the spartan training
regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota: “He’s a guy who gets up at six o’clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is.”
A man staggers into an emergency room with a concussion, multiple bruises, two black eyes, and a five iron wrapped tightly around his throat. Naturally, the doctor asks him what happened.
The Snark Handbook: Insult Edition (Snark Series) Page 6
