HUMOUR (5) POLITICS

Here are some of the wittiest and most politically incorrect put-downs ever uttered by activists and those in government.

Winston Churchill on prime minister Lord Rosebery. "He was a great man in an era of small events."

John Quincy Adams on Thomas Jefferson. "A slur upon the moral government of the world."

Georges Clemenceau on David Lloyd George. "Oh, if I could piss the way he speaks."

Jim HIghtower on George H. W. Bush. "If ignorance ever goes to $40 a barrel, I want the drilling rights to George Bush's head."

Former senator Bob Dole on George W. Bush. "Well, he got this new globe for Christmas," asserting that GWB lacks a grasp of foreign affairs.

John Montagu: (after a heated exchange with John Wilkes) : Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!"
John Wilkes: "That, sir, depends on whether I first embrace your Lordship's principles or your Lordship's mistresses."

Adlai Stevenson on the Republican Party. "If they will stop telling lies about the Democrats,
​we will stop telling the truth about them."

Bob Dole on Carter, Ford and Nixon. "History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington party
​ a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents: 
Carter, Ford and Nixon. See No Evil, Hear no Evil, and Evil."

Assistant secretary of the navy, Teddy Roosevelt on president William McKinley. "No more backbone than a chocolate eclair."

Pat Buchanan on Bill Clinton. 'Bill Clinton's foreign policy experience is pretty much confined to
​having had breakfast once at the nearest IHOP."

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating on John Hewson. "He's like a shiver waiting for a spine."

Barney Frank on George W. Bush. "People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be
​totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale."

MP Johnathan Aitken on prime minister Margaret Thatcher. "She probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus."

Benjamin Disraeli on William Gladstone. "If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune.
​Pulling him out would be a calamity."

Senator William E. Jenner on New York governor W. Averell Harriman. "He's thin, boys. He's thin as piss on a rock."

Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle. "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. 
Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Andrew Jackson. "I have only two regrets. I didn't shoot Henry Clay and I didn't hang John C. Calhoun."
John C. Calhoun was his vice president.

Lyndon Johnson on Gerald Ford. "He's a nice guy but he played too much football with his helmet off."

Winston Churchill on prime minister Clement Attlee. "An empty cab pulled up to 10 Downing Street. Clement Atlee got out."

Abraham Lincoln on Stephen Douglas. "His argument is as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death."

Adlai Stevenson on Richard Nixon. "The kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then
​mount the stump to make a speech for conservation."

Texas governor Ann Richards on George W. Bush. "Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

Winston Churchill on prime minister Clement Atlee. "He's a modest man with much to be modest about."

David Cameron on Tony Blair. "He was the future, once."​

Georgi Plekhanov, Russian Social Democrat on Vladimir Lenin. "You show the bourgeoisie your behind.
We, on the contrary, look them in the face."

Former Israeli prime minister Golda Mier to former Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan. "Don't be so humble.
​You're not that great."

HUMOUR (5)