Speech Goofs

I. SPEECH GOOFS

"I want to make sure everybody who has a job wants a job"
                 --George Bush, during his first Presidential campaign

"This is a great day for France!"
          --Richard Nixon, while attending Charles De Gaulle's funeral

"Now, like, I'm President. It would be pretty hard for some drug guy
to come into the White House and start offering it up, you know? ... I
bet if they did, I hope I would say, 'Hey, get lost. We don't want any
of that.'"
        --George Bush, talking about drug abuse to a group of students

"For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan.
We've had triumphs. Made some mistakes. We've had some sex ... uh...
setbacks."
                                          --George Bush

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy. But that could change."
                                          --Dan Quayle

"Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is in
the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that
is right here."
                              --Dan Quayle during a visit to Hawaii in 1989

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind--or not to have a mind. How
true that is."
                    --Dan Quayle addressing the United Negro College Fund

"I am honored today to begin my first term as the Governor of
Baltimore-that is Maryland."
                 --William Donald Schaefer, first inaugural address

"The caribou love it. They rub against it and they have babies. There
are more caribou in Alaska than you can shake a stick at."
                              --George Bush, on the Alaska pipeline

"I hope I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-racism. This is
what drives me."
                                          --George Bush

"If I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough I would be convinced
that we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going
without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something
about the unemployed."
                                         --Ronald Reagan

"My fellow Americans, I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia
forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
            --Ronald Reagan, about to go on the air for a radio
              broadcast, unaware that the microphone was already on

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit. Mars is somewhat the same
distance from the sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures
where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that
means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
                                         --Dan Quayle

"Now we are trying to get unemployment to go up and I think we're
going to succeed."

AND GREAT MOMENTS IN POLITICAL DEBATES

Walter Mondale: George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize.
Bush: Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time.

II. FOREIGN GOOFS

"Bite the wax tadpole."
          -- Coca-Cola as originally translated into Chinese

"Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave."
      -- ad slogan "Pepsi Comes Alive" as originally translated into
Chinese

"I am a jelly doughnut"
      --English translation of John F. Kennedy
        speaking at the Berlin Wall

"We pray for MacArthur's erection."
     --sign erected by Japanese citizens in Tokyo, when MacArthur was
       considering a run for President

"You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid."
     --from a guest directory at a Japanese hotel, 1991

"It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant."
     --Perdue chicken ad, as mistranslated abroad

III. MISCELLANEOUS

"I'm not against the blacks and a lot of the good blacks will attest
to that."
                 --Evan Mecham, then governor of Arizona

"Nixon has been sitting in the White House while George McGovern has
been exposing himself to the people of the United States."
     --Frank Licht, then governor of Rhode Island, campaigning for
       McGovern in 1972

"Retraction: The 'Greek Special' is a huge 18 inch pizza and not a
huge 18 inch penis, as described in an add. Blondie's Pizza would like
to apologize for any confusion Friday's ad may have caused."
     --correction printed in The Daily Californian

"Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it
rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a
terrible thing for the Padres!"
            --Jerry Coleman, Padres radio announcer

"I want you to take your balls in your hand and bounce them on the
floor and then throw them as high as you can. Now, have you all got
your balls in your hands?"
            --announcer of children's radio show "Life With Mother" to
              her audience

They X-Rayed my head and found nothing.
            --Jerome "Dizzy" Dean