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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.

  • January 9, 2012

    Gingrich on Romney: "Pious baloney."....DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse on Romney: "Truth challenged."....Carl Paladino on Romney: "A plastic tool of the Republican establishment."....David Axelrod on Romney: "Taking two positions on every issue, one on the left and one on the far right, doesn't make you a centrist. It makes you a charlatan."....Perry on Romney: "There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business."....Chris Matthews on Romney: "I have no idea what he believes. He's dog-trained himself to say certain things."....Romney on Huntsman: "The person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China."....Huntsman on Romney: "This nation is divided because of attitudes like that."....Michelle Malkin: "We need GOP debate sponsored by Viagra to cure collective impotence of the non-Romneys."....
  • January 2, 2012

    Newt Gingrich: "Romney would buy the election if he could."....Rick Santorum on Ron Paul: "Disgusting."....Joe Scarborough on Gingrich: "Not fit to be the president of the United States."....Michele Bachmann on Planned Parenthood: "They want to become the Lenscrafters of big abortion."....Donald Trump: "We have the Manchurian Candidate as our president."....Gingrich on opponents: "Nastier and more dishonest than I expected."....Iowa Gov. Terry Brandstad on Huntsman: "He's an asterisk, and he's never going to get beyond that."....NH Union Leader publisher Joseph W. McQuaid on Ron Paul: "A dangerous man...Has been consistently spouting...nonsense."....Gingrich on Republican Establishment: "Anti-intellectual and anti-change...They're for winning as long as it's meaningless."....Mark Steyn on Ron Paul: "Sheer stupid half-witted parochialism."....Gingrich: "I feel Romney-boated."....
  • December 29, 2011

    Romney on Gingrich: "Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory."....Romney press secretary Andrea Saul on Gingrich: "A desperate candidate...An unreliable leader...An unreliable conservative."....Rep. Peter King on Gingrich: "Erratic...Self-centered...He'd be a terrible nominee."....Gingrich on Ron Paul: "Systemic avoidance of reality."....Ron Paul ad on Romney: "Serial flip-flopper."....Gingrich on Romney: "Moderate."....
  • December 23, 2011

    Romney on Obama: "Is going to put free enterprise on trial."....Paul Krugman on Romney: "Seems confident that he will pay no price for making stuff up."....Biden on Romney: "Appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed."....Romney on Biden: "Chutzpah...Delusion...Fantasyland."....Gingrich on Reid and Obama: "It's disheartening seeing them turn us into a Third World country."....Bachmann on Obama: "Acting like we're a Banana Republic."....NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox on Obama: "Imposing his anti-freedom values on the American people."....Hugo Chavez on Obama: "A clown."....McCain on Obama: "Using [withdrawal from Iraq] as part of the propaganda for his re-election."....Gingrich on Ron Paul: "The key to his volunteer base is people who want to legalize drugs."....Ad by pro-Romney Super PAC: "Newt has more baggage than the airlines."....John Cassidy on Gingrich's opponents: "Clubbing him like a baby seal."....Erick Erickson: "The Republican Party has gone insane."....Pat Robertson on SNL Tebow sketch: "Anti-Christian bigotry."....Ted Rall on editorial cartoonists: "We suck."....
  • December 19, 2011

    Judge James Zagel on rejected Blagojevich appeal: "Harebrained."....Vladimir Putin on US foreign policy: "America doesn't need allies, it only needs vassals."....National Review on Gingrich: "Again and again he put his own interests above those of the causes he championed in public."....David Brooks on Gingrich: "Has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with '60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance."....Romney on Gingrich: "An extraordinarily unreliable leader."....Joe Klein on Gingrich: "Dangerous nonsense passed off as considered thought."....Charles Krauthammer on Gingrich: "Has a self-regard so immense that it rivals Obama's -- but, unlike Obama's, is untamed by self-discipline."....Breitbart on Beck: "A coward...A huckster."....Barbara Walters: "The day after someone else is elected, Donald Trump is still going to be saying he's the candidate."....Rep. John Dingell in his annual "Winter Wonderland" jingle: "House bells ring, are you listening / On the floor a job plan's missing / A terrible sight / A horrible blight / Washington is stuck in never land."....