A reader sent me these humorous quotes attributed to the late (traditional) conservative icon Senator Barry Goldwater:
Humorous Quotes attributed to Barry Goldwater 1909-1998,
American Statesman, Senator, Republican Presidential Candidate
“A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big
enough to take it all away.”
“I have long said that there are more leaks in Washington than
in Anheuser-Busch’s biggest men’s room.”
“I once paraphrased Mark Twain on the Senate floor – there is
no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.’
‘If everybody in this town connected with politics had to leave
town because of chasing women and drinking, you would have no
government.”
“It was always my feeling, and still is, that a man’s main message
should be headlined – not the fact that he may have fallen off a horse at the county fair. Any damn fool can do that.”
“It’s a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president
… except me.”
“I won’t say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder
where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
“No lie is intelligent, but his (Richard Nixon’s) were colossal
stupidity because they involved the presidency of the United States.”
“The business and sport of Washington is talking, night and day.
The nation’s capital is the Hoover Dam of leaks.”
“The conscience of the House once became so pained that members
actually passed a resolution saying, “Your Congress is not a crook.”
“The Defense Department spends as much time on its annual
budget as it does planning to defend the country.”
“The income tax created more criminals than any other single act
of government.”
“The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does
not take place.”
“Those early instructors rarely taught students how to get out of
a spin. One of them once said jokingly to me, “If you ever get into one let go of everything and start the Lord’s Prayer.”
“Westerners often admire a man more for standing tall than being
right. That might not appear to be the most politic thing to say, but it’s the truth.”
“You don’t need to be ‘straight’ to fight for your country. You
just need to shoot straight.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.