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Ten dumbest lines of the year: 2009
by Mark Silva
There was no poll here.
Just a selective recall from random memories of a year run amok with certifiiably dumb ideas, which leads to our offering this afternoon of the 10 dumbest lines of the year:
No. 10: "President Barack Obama is nothing without a TelePrompTer.''
The fact that the president relied on a TelePrompTer to help him deliver his acceptance speech for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize today obscures the story that one of his speechwriters in Oslo was telling today: Obama wrote the speech. Read Dreams From My Father. He wrote that, too (with assertions to the contrary a runner up for No. 10 on this list.)
No. 9: "The government wants to outlaw breathing.''
The fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that the man-made greenhouse gases blamed for contributing to global warming are a public health threat does not mean that everyone will have to stop emitting carbon dioxide.
No. 8: "There's no global warming because it's cold outside.''
Winter has arrived once again, as it has many times, but the fact that the thermometer has registered below zero in early December -- no more than a bunch of hacked emails from England -- does not negate the threat of climate change.
No. 7: "There's no health-care crisis.''
Tell that to the more than 40 million Americans who lack insurance for health care. Tell Rep. Joe Wilson, who yelled during a presidential address to a joint session of Congress: "You lie.'' (Runner up for No. 7 in this commentary.)
No. 6: "Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party.''
No one is. Not until the fall of 2012.
No. 5: "Sarah Palin is a victim of the media.''
It may be the other way around: The former governor of Alaska, 2008 GOP nominee for vice president and author of the popular Going Rogue memoir has won more free media exposure with the mere posting of Facebook Notes and one-liners -- ''We eat, therefore we hunt'' -- than anyone who holds no public office.
No. 4: "FOX is not a news network.''
Say what you will about the points of view which cable commentators air, the merits of that undercover ACORN sting or the occasional video clip of the wrong tax-protest rally aired by the control room, but the nation's No. 1-rated cable news network did not rack up 95 weeks as No. 1 without an audience looking for news that it doesn't believe it is finding elsewhere, and the White House plays with fire when it fights FOX.
No. 3: "Glenn Beck tells it like it is.''
In the rush for audiences with a thirst for points of view, the escalation of the war between cable commentators has produced the rhetorical equivalent of nuclear winter, a complete decimation of reason and civility which has made a star of one commentator whose idea of making a point is butchering a congresswoman's ethnic name.
No. 2: "Barack Obama (sub Nancy Pelosi) is a fascist." (or "socialist,'' or "Nazi")
Say what you will about health care reform, "cap and trade'' energy legislation, economic stimulus spending, deficits, taxes and "the race to the top'' in education, but the protesters toting placards picturing a modern-day American president wearing a clipped mustache have done a grave injustice to the memories of the millions of victims of the modern world's worst tyrants.
No 1: "The president of the United States is not a citizen of the U.S.''
Global warming may not have felled as many trees as were lost in the printing of the debunking of a seemingly endless story-line which insists that Obama was not born where his Hawaiian-state-certified birth certificate says he was born, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
With high hopes for 2010, an early Happy New Year to all.
(The photo, above, of President Barack Obama delivering the Nobel Lecture in Oslo today was taken by John McConnico / AFP / Getty Images)
Speech Writers Grade Obama's Oslo Address
President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, in Oslo, Norway. He delivered a 36-minute speech and spoke about "the notions of a just war and the imperatives of a just peace." Two former White House speech writers assess the president's address.
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