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Mudline Archive

STICKS, STONES, BROKEN BONES

During the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential race, we began collecting negative soundbites and posting them weekly on a MUDLINE ticker, as a temporary election feature. But in the aftermath of that tumultuous contest we realized that the tone of public discourse was unlikely to improve, and elected to continue the feature. Unfortunately, we were right; two decades later, incivility is hotter than ever. If you just can’t get enough snark on social media, this mud’s for you.

  • February 9, 2012

    Piers Morgan on Madonna halftime show: "Gruesome!...Like watching your mad drunken aunt at Christmas!"....Rick Santorum on global warming: "The hoax."....Fidel Castro on Obama UN speech: "Gibberish."....Lawrence O'Donnell on Trump: "A buffoon...America's biggest loser."....Trump on O'Donnell: "The dumbest man on television."....David Rees on Gingrich: "The only way he'd be a worse Dickens villain is if he were a one-legged chimney sweep named Pickpocky Blowhardmor."....Matt Taibbi on Santorum: “The nation’s leading pious, finger-wagging bore, the Anita Bryant of his time.”….Cal Thomas on Rachel Maddow: "She is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception. I would be for that and all the rest of the crowd at MSNBC too for that matter."....Ann Coulter on Dems: "Could use a sunny day as an excuse to destroy the free market, redistribute income and pander to lobbyists."....
  • February 6, 2012

    Gingrich on Romney: "Fundamentally dishonest."....Pawlenty on Santorum: "A leading earmarker and pork-barrel spender...Simply not ready to be President."....Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley on Romney: "Never touts his own record -- because it's abysmal."....Charles Blow on Romney: "If only he had a heart, and if only that heart was connected to his brain."....Ted Rall: "The U.S. government's top priority is invading Muslim countries and bombing their citizens."....Chris Christie on Jersey Shore cast: "Losers."....
  • February 3, 2012

    Newt Gingrich: "Nobama and NoRomney is about the same."....Romney super PAC ad on Gingrich: "Is no Ronald Reagan."....Gingrich on Romney: "It used to be pious baloney, now it's desperate baloney."....Former Gingrich aide Rick Tyler on Romney: "A disgraceful and despicable candidate."....Gingrich on Romney: "Cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare."....Gingrich communications director Joe DeSantis on Romney: "Uses shady accounting gimmicks to avoid paying his fair share of taxes."....Noam Sheiber on Romney: "Inherited all of his father's noblesse, but none of the oblige."....Gingrich on Romney: "Blatantly doesn't tell the truth."....Fred Thompson on Romney: "Unseemliness and overkill."....Newt Gingrich: "I give the Romney campaign due respect for their sheer volume of negativity."....Romney on Obama: "Has been a failure for the American people."....James Taranto on Obama: "Furious and divisive."....Santorum on Trump: "Does things for one reason and we all know what that reason is."....Maurice Sendak on Gingrich: "An idiot of great renown...There is something so hopelessly gross and vile about him that it's hard to take him seriously."....Chris Wallace on GOP debates: "Stupid."....
  • January 29, 2012

    Romney on Gingrich: "Flailing around."....Tom DeLay on Gingrich: "He'll tell you what you want to hear."....Joe Scarborough on Gingrich as Speaker: "Arrogance, self-satisfaction and a fatal tendency to flit from issue to issue."....Romney on Gingrich: "His record is one of failed leadership."....David Brooks on Gingrich: "In his ideal world, he'd have a six-hour debate, but with himself and all the positions he took five minutes ago."....Presidential grandson Harrison Tyler on Gingrich: "A great big jerk."....
  • January 24, 2012

    Chris Christie on Gingrich: "Has been an embarrassment to the party."....Former Rep. Martin Frost on Gingrich: "I have great confidence in his ability to screw up in the future."....Gingrich ad on Romney: "Will say and do anything to become president."....Romney ad on Gingrich: "An historian. Really?"....Steve Karnacki on Gingrich: "The more people see of him, the less they like him."....Gingrich ad on Romney: "Goes around using Castro phrases."....Noah Millman on Gingrich: "A walking catalog of everything that is wrong with alpha-maleness."....Gingrich on Romney: "A very good salesman, who very much wants to sell, but has a very weak product."....Gingrich adviser Kevin Kellems on Romney: "Bouncing around the podium like an overcaffeinated high-schooler."....David Zielenzeiger on Gingrich: "A motormouth...A phony...Utterly inauthentic."....Rod Dreher on Romney: "The Canned Cranberry Sauce Candidate: the appearance of substance, but made of jelly, and so recently glopped from the can I can still see the rings."....George Will: "Mitt Romney's problem is somehow his Romneyness."....Sarah Palin on the media: "Dumb arses."....