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.
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September 25, 2012
NY Post cover on Ahmadinejad: "Piece of Sh!t!"....Mitt Romney on Obama foreign policy: "Projects weakness."....Ryan on Obama and Libya attack: "If we project weakness, they come."....UN Amb. Susan Rice on Ryan comment: "Empty and baseless."....Ralph Nader on Romney: “A corporation running for president masquerading as a human being.”….McCain on Obama: "Has a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on in the Middle East."....Bob Shrum on Romney: "The biggest shapeshifter outside of Harry Potter."....Joe Scarborough on Romney campaign: "Inept...A nightmare."....Richard Cohen on Romney: "Robotic, unknowable."....Michele Malkin on Peggy Noonan and David Brooks: "We know what their own best interest is. Their own interest at heart is their own self-propagation."....Joy-Ann Reid: "Battery acid is more popular than the Republican Party right now."....Steve Coll on "Innocence of Muslims": "The low-budget aesthetic recalls 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.'".... -
September 19, 2012
Sen. John McCain on the U.S.: "The weak horse."....Pat Buchanan: "Barack Obama is a drug dealer of welfare. He wants permanent dependency."....Peggy Noonan on Romney campaign: "Incompetent."....LA Times on Romney: "An outrageous exercise in opportunism."....David Brooks on Romney: "When will the incompetence stop?"....Amy Davidson on Romney: "He seems to be utterly delusional."....Joan Walsh on Romney: "An equal opportunity class warrior: he disdains everyone who is struggling."....Rush Limbaugh on Obama: "Attempting to stigmatize anybody that has succeeded and is calling them the enemy."....Former Sen. John Danforth on Todd Akin: "Has taken the banner and marched into the woods."....Scientology attorney Jeffrey K. Riffer on Vanity Fair article by Maureen Orth: "The allegations she forwards are akin to asking the Pope if he threw poison in the wine before failing to bless the Holy Communion during the Easter service.".... -
September 16, 2012
Liz Cheney on Obama: "Apologizing for America, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies and slashing our military."....Todd Akin on Obama: "Apologizing to all people, a lot of countries who are enemies...He's just apologizing because he doesn't like America."....Sen. James Inhofe on Obama: "Appeasement and apology."....James Taranto on Obama: "A submissive-sounding president."....Jonathan Tobin on Obama: "Determined to win the love of the Islamic world."....Romney foreign policy adviser Richard Williamson on Obama: "It's amateur hour."....Peggy Noonan on Romney: "Looked weak...He looks like Richard Nixon."....Sen. Frank Lautenberg on Romney: "An atrocious political response that undermines our unity."....Ruth Marcus on Romney: "[A] dishonest effort to take advantage of this national tragedy for his own political ends...Disgraceful."....Sen. John Kerry on Romney: "Callous and just sad."....LA Times: "[An] outrageous exercise in opportunism."....Joyce Carol Oates on Romney: "Ghastly.".... -
September 12, 2012
Mitt Romney on U.S. embassy's statement: "An apology for American principles."....William Kristol on statement: "Disgraceful."....Jonathan Tobin on statement: "Shocking...Craven."....Former Ambassador Richard Williamson on Obama administration: "Apologizes for our values."....Sarah Palin on Obama: "If he doesn't have a 'big stick' to carry, maybe it's time for him to grow one."....Joan Walsh on Romney: "Cheap political grandstanding...Cruel opportunism...Is proving he would be a disaster as president."...."Rep. Loretta Sanchez on Romney: "A t-ball move."....Bob Shrum on Romney: "Came across as an opportunist...I don't think he's ready to be commander in chief."....Ron Fournier on Romney: "Ham-handed."....Rush Limbaugh on Romney: "He may as well be Elmer Fudd as far as we're concerned. We're voting against Obama."....Filmmaker Sam Bacile: "Islam is a cancer, period.".... -
September 10, 2012
Mitt Romney on Dems: "Veering further and further away into an extreme wing that Americans don't recognize."....Charles Krauthammer on Obama acceptance: "One of the emptiest speeches I have ever heard on a national stage."....Mike Huckabee on Romney: "If you have cancer, who cares if your surgeon is a jerk?"....Andrew Sullivan on Bush: "The moaning skeleton in Romney's closet."....Marco Rubio: "Under Barack Obama, the only change is that hope has been hard to find."....John Kerry on Romney: "Talks like he's only seen Russia by watching 'Rocky IV.'"....former MI Gov. Jennifer Granholm: "In Romney's world, the cars get the elevator, and the workers get the shaft."....Bob Cesca on GOP: "Whining and pooping its big boy pants about how the Democrats are being SO MEAN."....Rep. Joe Walsh on Sandra Fluke: "We're raising Americans who don't know how to take care of themselves, who feel entitled...Get a job!"....R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe on Fox News: "Our music does not belong there...We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage."....Katie Roiphe on Naomi Wolf's book Vagina: A Biography: "It would be hard to write a parody more effective, more sublime, than this."....