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.

  • March 15, 2013

    Sen. Mitch McConnell on Dems: "Their presidential ticket looks like a rerun of The Golden Girls."....Former Rep. Joe Walsh: "The American people have grown stupid, we've grown uninterested, we've gotten busy, we're distracted, we're lazy, and we're easily manipulated."....Al Gore on the NRA: "A complete fraud."....Roger Ailes on Newt Gingrich: "He's a prick."....
  • March 8, 2013

    Julian Bond on Justice Scalia: "The Rush Limbaugh of the Supreme Court."....Roger Ailes on Joe Biden: "Dumb as an ashtray."....Rep. Keith Ellison on Sean Hannity: "The worst excuse for a journalist I've ever seen."....Bill O'Reilly on Obama: "Hell-bent on destroying the Republican Party and he does not seem to care if the nation collapses as a result."....Fox News' Shep Smith on Rand filibuster: "Stupid."....
  • March 2, 2013

    Rachel Maddow on Justice Scalia: "A troll."....David Horsey on Scalia: "Displayed all the mental acuity of a third-tier talk radio bozo."....Toure: "Totally racist."....Ben Shapiro on Obama: "One of the great political knife-fighters in modern history. He is a failed president."....Rush Limbaugh: "The left has beaten us. They have created far more low-information, unaware, uneducated people than we've been able to keep up with."....
  • February 25, 2013

    Parent Television Council on Seth MacFarlane: "Crass, vulgar and juvenile humor...Misogynist, racist and anti-Semitic jokes."....Anti-Defamation League: "Offensive and not remotely funny."....Rob Sheffield: "A flop-sweat monsoon of historic proportions...Turned out so much worse than anyone could have expected."....Claire Hoffman: "Suddenly the bitter a**hole on the couch was up there on the stage, lost somewhere between a big smile and a sneer.".....Amy Davidson: "A series of crudely sexist antics led by a scrubby, self-satisfied Seth MacFarlane...Unattractive and sour."....Alexandrea Petri: "Delivering jokes directly from 1930."....Spencer Kornhaber: "If only he'd kept his mouth shut more frequently."....
  • February 16, 2013

    Justice Antonin Scalia on SOTU: "Has turned into a childish spectacle."....Sen. Mitch McConnell on Obama's SOTU speech: "Another retread of lip service and liberalism."....Chris Matthews on Marco Rubio SOTU response: "Tinkertoys. A kids presentation of a philosophy reduced to maybe the ninth grade level."....William Rivers Pitt on John Boehner: "That sad, sorry, orange-hued sack of failure."....Ted Nugent on Rep. Jim Langevin: "He probably has s*** for brains."....