Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington D.C. :
" I read a funny story about how the Republicans freed the slaves. The Republicans are the ones who created slavery by law in the 1600's. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was not a Republican."
" The brave men who died in Vietnam, more than 100% of which were black, were the ultimate sacrifice."
" I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa?"
" The laws in this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law of gravity is racist."
" I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis no less."
" If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very very low crime rate."
" I promise you a police car on every sidewalk."
" What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?"
" People blame me because these water mains break, but I ask you, if the water mains didn't break, would it be my responsibility to fix them then? WOULD IT!?!"
Or, former Senator/Vice President Dan Quayle:
"We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
"There is one picture on TV I'll never forget - the picture of a man being pulled from his truck and being beaten to death."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle talking about a LA riot video tape showing 33-year-old Reginald Denny being beaten unconscious. Denny, however, did not die from the attack. (Reported by AP 5/1/92, taken from the Quayle Quarterly, Summer/Fall 1992)
"Speaking as a man, it's not a woman's issue. Us men are tired of losing our women."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle talking about breast cancer
"We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in `Red Storm Rising'."
-- Senator Dan Quayle, 9/6/88 (reported in Esquire, 8/92) Also reported by Newsweek, 9/88
"Maybe you guys will get lucky this year and face the Orioles in the World Series."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle encouraging the Milwaukee Brewers after throwing out the opening pitch of the season. Both teams are in the American League. (5/3/92 Sunday Detroit News)
"My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will never, never surrender to what is right."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle speaking to the Christian Coalition about the need for abstinence to avoid AIDS, 11/15/91 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)
"Okay, I won't open it until then."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle after having been presented with an empty box that was to contain a gift from a sailing team in South America. He was told that the gift was not ready yet, but that it would be presented to him when they arrived in the United States.
"If you give a person a fish, they'll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they'll fish for a lifetime."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle while at a job training center in Atlanta celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Job Training Partnership Act, which Quayle helped to sponsor while a senator, 10/13/92. (reported in the NY Times, 10/14/92).
"I have made good judgments in the Past.
I have made good judgments in the Future."
