December 24, 2003
QUOTES OF 2003 - JUNE
• "Britain and Australia have public broadcasters that enhance their nation's intellectual climate while the US, lacking a similar body, has hundreds of broadcasters and none worth tuppence." -- SMH columnist Adele Horin
• "I am going to a Regimental Reunion in Wagga Wagga in August - you might like to drop in and explain to the blokes of my Infantry Battalion what you mean by 'lying bastards'." -- Ken Gillett offers an invitation to ABC current affairs boss Max Uechtritz
• "Hatred and aggression and murderous ambitions are ... our friends." -- George W. Bush is put through the Dowdifier
• "The senator seems to think the media's duty in time of war is to fall meekly into line with the government of the day." -- Max Uechtritz and Martin Hirst fall meekly into line with each other, writing the same defence of the ABC
• "I think he should be just taken away, shot in the back of the head and buried in a ditch with just no mark and so basically just wipe him out of existence." -- Randall Lee, whose two brothers and sister-in-law were killed in the Bali bomb attack, on Imam Samudra
• "I know you are Irish, but what is your question?" -- Professor Niall Ferguson, to a "shamanistic poet" who interrupted his lecture
• "Just about the only person criticising Bush in the US media is Sean Penn." -- The Guardian’s Gary Younge
• "I subscribed to your newspaper for 22 years. I believed every word and then I learned the truth: that you hire retarded people because of the government programs, and these people are made to write things they did not write, for reasons they did not know. First there is the one boy, then the older man with diabetes, then the 'columnist' who jokes with lies about every little thing, and when would it end?" -- Larry Jonestowne, in a letter to the New York Times
• "George W. Bush, the US President, has used his weekly radio address to again steal his nation." -- ABC radio transcript
• "I was unaware that Byrd had indeed worn the pointy hood for two years from 1942. Plainly, that renders his background considerably less than admirable." -- SMH columnist Mike Carlton
• "Associating with Arabs has brought us nothing but shame and heartache." -- Seyf al-Islam Kaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator
• "Hay Bush wepon masterucshin? Their it is weight no just Irak babie no leg." -- Puce
• "I do not see, in the light of those mass graves, how it is now possible to say this war should not have been fought." -- The Age’s Pamela Bone
• "I will not pay. I'll do the time." -- Danish pizzeria owner Aage Bjerre, fined $1200 for refusing to serve French and German tourists
• "People have no respect for bicycle riders." -- English professor and cyclist Luis Rodriguez, scared off the road by North Carolina drivers
• "I'm happy to eat crow." -- Phillip Adams, after museum looting stories were discounted
• "When a rock-tossing amateur athlete can spend less than 15 minutes on the web confirming a writer's humiliating legacy of bias, after reading one of his stories for the first time, then ya gotta know the jig is up." -- Olympic curler George Karrys
• "Media Watch is a program about the media and journalism that promotes a number of principles, including free speech. The phrase ‘nigger in the woodpile’ is a colloquialism, which means a hidden or unacknowledged problem. Some people may feel it's in bad taste, but we wouldn't pick up someone for using the term in context." -- Media Watch executive producer Peter McEvoy.
• "He’s the only client I ever fired in writing. He was the most difficult human being I’ve ever met. There was no one who even came close. Michael Moore would never withstand the scrutiny he lays on other people. You would think that he’s the ultimate common man. But he’s money-obsessed." -- Michael Moore’s former manager
• "They missed a good opportunity to shut up." -- Silvio Berlusconi, after French criticism of his refusal to meet Palestinian leaders
• "The culture and the values which they will force us to accept will be hedonism, unlimited quest for pleasure, the satisfaction of base desires, particularly sexual desires. Our way of life must be the same as their way of life. Asian values do not exist for them." -- Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohamad sticks it to the west
• "I was a walking contradiction. Was I a conquering capitalist or a socialist activist? I still don't know." -- deep-thinking Friends star David Schwimmer
• "Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil." -- Paul Wolfowitz, as misquoted by Robert Fisk
• "Karl Marx was right: in the end, the politicians in a liberal, capitalist democracy are the messengers, couriers and enforcers for their corporate owners." -- The Age’s Terry Lane
• "Adams has rewritten the information sufficiently so that he isn't using Schuessler's manner of expression." -- Peter McEvoy lets Phillip Adams off the hook
• "I haven't talked about it. People might misunderstand it." -- British Labour MP Ann Clwyd on her secret friendship with the hated American neo-cons
• "You're a f---ing dog, mate, you're going to die, you f---." -- Bali bomb survivor Jake Ryan, to Imam Sumudra
• "I'll chip in on the beers." -- commenter Bryan J., sparking the Jake Ryan Beer Fund
• "I will never forget when one of my cousins actually burst into tears when I said out loud "I am a Republican" at a Thanksgiving dinner." -- blogger Mapchic
• "As a Muslim, I am very glad and proud of what Bali bomb victim Jake Ryan did, even if it breached the official conduct in court. Good on you Jake – that Imam Samudra extremist deserves to be shouted at with the worst of language and even more." -- Shamsul Khairuddin
• "He didn't bother to order anything to eat, he just asked for a VB." -- publican Shane Able, after Benjamin O’Connor walked into his bar following five days lost in the desert
• "Most people probably know what my goal was." -- Louie Zervos, whose sister and two cousins were murdered in Bali, on why he had attended the bombers’ trials.
• "I simply say in relation to the BBC story — it is a lie." -- Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s communications director
• "I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator." -- BBC special correspondent John Sweeney
• "With the Imperial War Machine in town this past week, it's been tempting to exercise a democratic freedom and make some lame but satisfying gesture, such as vomiting on a marine's fatigues." -- the SMH’s Malcolm Knox
• "The insider's story of a White House fixed in its ways after the Reagan-Bush years is told with wit and grace ... Some see Living History as the opening shot in the Hillary 2008 campaign. For what it’s worth, I think they’re right and I hope she wins." -- The Australian’s Stephen Romei, on Hillary Clinton’s crap book
• "There's a dork out there running the most powerful country in the world without a qualification to his name." -- Dmitri Piterman, president of Spanish soccer team Racing Santander
• "I'm sure you will find another lab if you look around." -- British professor of pathology Andrew Wilkie, in a letter telling Amit Duvshani that he and other Israelis aren’t welcome at Wilkie’s university
• "He can roll up his sleeves all he wants at public events, but as long as we see that heart tattoo with Neville Chamberlain's name on his right forearms, he's never going anywhere." -- Dennis Miller on Howard Dean
• "I don't know how Harry scrubs up at 15 but Judith Torzillo isn't bad for 11." -- the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien
Posted by Tim Blair at December 24, 2003 03:07 PM