Archive

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.

  • September 10, 2015

    Trump on Obama: "Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran...We are led by very, very, stupid people."....Sarah Palin: "Only in an Orwellian Obama world full of sprinkly fairy dust blown from a toxic unicorn as he's peeking through a really pretty pink kaleidoscope would he ever see victory or safety for America or Israel in this treaty."....Trump: "For the most part, you can't respect people because most people aren't worthy of respect."....Paul Krugman on Trump: "He's exactly the ignorant blowhard he seems to be."....Trump to Univision host Jorge Ramos: "I have a bigger heart than you do."....Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Trump: "No one has to twist his words because what he says is twisted enough. He speaks fluent pretzel."....Marla Maples on ex-husband Donald Trump: "The little boy that still wants attention."....Des Moines Register on Trump: "A feckless blowhard."....Trump on Des Moines Register: "Very dishonest...Failing."....Trump on Hugh Hewitt after interview: "A third-rate radio announcer."....Trump military academy mentor Col. Theodore Dobias, on Trump: "A conniver, even then. A real pain in the ass."....Trump on Trump: "When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same. The temperament is not that different."....Molly Ball on Trump: "This season's flesh-colored gap in the space-time continuum."....
  • September 2, 2015

    Trump on Jeb Bush: "Can't negotiate his way out of a paper bag."....Timothy Egan on Trump: "The orangutan-haired vulgarian...Narcissism, rudeness, frivolity and xenophobia."....Trump on Jeb Bush ad: "Yet another weak hit by a candidate with a failing campaign."....John Boehner on Ted Cruz: "A jackass."....Sen. Lindsey Graham on Trump: "A complete idiot...I'll beat his brains out."....Trump on Mexico: "Living off the United States...Not our friend."....La Raza spokeswoman Lisa Navarrete on Trump: "An exceedingly silly man...I look at him as a two-year-old who will say a naughty word to get their parents' attention."....Mexico's interior minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong on Trump immigration comments: "Absurd...Prejudice, racism, or plain ignorance...Migrants from practically every nation in the world...have supported the development of the United States."....George Zimmerman on Obama: "Ignorant baboon."....Missouri school board member Mark Gremaud on a colleague: "You are just a woman. The only thing you know is laying on your back with your legs in the air splayed."....Fox 35 anchor John Brown, walking off camera during his show's latest Kardashian piece: "It's a non-story! We're talking about this family every freaking day on this show! Nobody cares about this family any more! That's enough!"....Tom LeClair on Jonathan Franzen's novel 'Purity': "I wonder if the book could be the great American novel of narcissistic masochism, a bad book written to punish the author for being a bad man in the past."....
  • August 24, 2015

    Trump on former Gov. Martin O'Malley: "A disgusting little weak pathetic baby."....GOP pollster Frank Luntz on Trump and Sanders: "Delivering a big 'F*** you' to the elites in America."....former Trump adviser Roger Stone on Luntz: "Pathetic turd."....Trump on Heidi Klum: "Sadly, she's no longer a 10."....Michael Gerson on Trump: "[A] joyful, spontaneous combination of ignorance and malice."....Chris Christie on Obama: "Has set a standard in Washington of lawlessness."....Trump on the U.S.: "Going to hell."....Ann Coulter on Fox News: "Is using black people as a false flag to keep cheap Third World labor flowing."....Trump on the U.S.: "The American Dream is dead."....Des Moines Register on Trump: "A feckless blowhard."....Keith Richards on "Sgt. Pepper": "A mishmash of rubbish, kind of like 'Satanic Majesties;' 'Oh, if you can make a load of s***, so can we.'"....
  • August 17, 2015

    Donald Trump on Gov. Scott Walker: "A dumb-dumb."....Trump on being interviewed by Anderson Cooper: "What a waste of time."....Rand Paul on Trump: "I easily beat him on the golf course and will even more easily beat him now."....Trump on NYT reporter Tim O'Brien: "Dumb guy with no clue."....Trump on Bureau of Labor Statistics: "Bunch of real clowns."....Sen. Lindsey Graham on Trump: "A jackass."....Trump on Graham: "What a stiff...A total lightweight."....Trump on Fiorina: "I can't say anything because Carly's a woman, and I don't want to be accused of being tough on her. I promised I would not say that she ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground. That her stock value tanked."....Jack Shafer: "Donald Trump isn't a simpleton, he just talks like one...If you were to market [his] vocabulary as a toy, it would resemble a small box of Lincoln Logs."....
  • August 9, 2015

    Trump on Fox News' Frank Luntz: "A low-class slob...A clown."....Ben Carson on Democratic voters: "Useful idiots."....Trump campaign on Erick Erickson: "Weak and pathetic."....Mike Huckabee on Obama: "Trusts our enemies but vilifies everyone who disagrees with him."....Trump on GOP rivals: "I wish good luck to all the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc from the Koch brothers...Puppets?"....Rand Paul on Trump: "He buys and sells politicians of all stripes."....Trump: "Everywhere in the world that Hillary Clinton touched is more messed up."....Ted Cruz on Obama: "[Trying to] snuggle up to radical Islamic regimes who hate America."....Trump on Obama: "He has set a very low bar and I think it's a shame for the African American people."....Sen. Marco Rubio on God: "Has blessed the Republican Party with some very good candidates. The Democrats can't even find one."....NY Daily News on Cosby: "America's Rapist."....