Copyright © 2016 by Jesse Ventura All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018. Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected]. Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation. Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. Cover design by Brian Peterson Cover photo and interior photos credit: AP images Print ISBN: 978-1- 5107-1417-5 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51071418-2 Printed in the United States of America Dedication I want to dedicate this book to my father and mother… To my father George—sergeant, World War II veteran, recipient of six Bronze Battle Stars, who, at the dinner table, frequently referred to Nixon as “the tailless rat.” And to my mother, Bernice—lieutenant, World War II veteran, nurse, served in North Africa. She always had the courage to send George to the basement when he got too wound up. Acknowledgments To the folks at Skyhorse—thanks for your diligent work. Special thanks to Joe Craig, Stacey Fischkelta, Jacob Klein, Mike Lewis, Jill Lichtenstadter, Rachel Mongomery, Brian Peterson, Steven Sussman, and Bill Wolfsthal. And special appreciation to Tony Lyons, for the courage he shows whenever he publishes me. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Sh*t Founding Fathers Said Chapter 2: Sh*t JFK Said Chapter 3: Sh*t Democrats Say Chapter 4: Sh*t Republicans Say Chapter 5: Sh*t Politicians Say About Money and the Economy Chapter 6: Sh*t Politicians Say About the Environment and Climate Change Chapter 7: Sh*t Politicians Say About Foreign Affairs Chapter 8: Sh*t Politicians Say About Same-Sex Rights and Gay Marriage Chapter 9: Sh*t Politicians Say About Health Care Chapter 10: Sh*t Politicians Say About Civil Rights Issues Chapter 11: Sh*t Politicians Say About Women Chapter 12: Sh*t Politicians Say About Religion Chapter 13: Sh*t George W. Bush (and His Administration) Said Chapter 14: Sh*t Sarah Palin Says Chapter 15: Just Plain Weird Sh*t Chapter 16: Last But Not Least: Sh*t I’ve Said Epilogue About the Author Introduction “In America, you have a right to be stupid, if you want to be. And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be. And we tolerate that—we somehow make it through that.” —John Kerry, in his first trip overseas as secretary of state, 2013 “The American people have grown stupid, we’ve grown uninterested, we’ve gotten busy, we’re distracted, we’re lazy, and we’re easily manipulated. Again, I can sit with you and have a beer and I can tell you about how idiotic most of our politicians are. That’s boring to me. It’s on us. Jefferson said something to the effect of, when a people becomes uninformed or uneducated—stupid—they’re going to lose their republic, they’re going to lose this democracy. And folks, I’m here to tell ya with a big old smile, we’re there. We’re losing.” —Joe Walsh (IL) at a town hall meeting in 2013 In the words of Bob Dole, “If you’re hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate. You’ll get the same kind of feeling and you won’t have to pay.” Since the dawn of politics, leaders and leader wannabes have opened their mouths, letting the stupid loose from their brains. We’ve watched the people running our countries closely for centuries, and we’ve heard just about everything, ranging from gaffes, rude remarks, and boorishness, to nastiness and malicious targeting. While the Greeks and Romans had formal government in their day, it wasn’t until after the American and French Revolutions that we could vote our stupid leaders back in office, rather than just have them be born into a stupid, royal family. And since we have the freedom of speech to criticize them, as well as the right to vote for them, I wrote this book. When I sat down for my interview in Playboy magazine back in 1999, I called out a lot of bullshit. From religion, to inept leaders, to fat people—I was honest. And I got a lot of shit for it. And even though people called me stupid, today I still stand by a lot of what I said. With this book, I want to take the time to hold a mirror up to a lot of ugly I see coming from the people whose fingers are on the big red button. Because despite the freedoms we still have, the system is broken. During the last midterm elections, 94 percent of Congress got reelected even though they have something like a 10 percent approval rating. Whether this disconnect is because a lot of people are too lazy or apathetic to vote; or because many people who would otherwise vote are too disillusioned with a system that puts the interests of rich corporations, their owners, and their lobbyists ahead of the people’s best interest; or a combination of both, everyone—Democrat and Republican—seems to be in agreement that this country is halfway to hell. And maybe because of all that, there seems to be an uptick of stupid. While, again, it’s existed for centuries, stupid seems to be everywhere these days. Some believe it’s because the human race is getting stupider and stupider with every passing year. Me? Apart from the paragraph above, I’d like to thank television, the Internet, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle for bringing more stupid to the public consciousness more efficiently than ever before. Thus, while I have a “historic chapter” on quotes that are from around 1990 and before, the giant bulk of these quotes will be from after 2000, and a big chunk of those from after 2010. But first: How do I define politician? Everyone knows what the word means, but sometimes there can be a fine line between politician, government employee, and pundit. A politician, to me, is an individual who holds or has held an elected or high-up appointed position in local, state, or federal government, or is running for or has run for one. So while Jerry Falwell—the evangelist who started Liberty University, founded the Moral Majority and is a conservative idol—said a lot of dumb, political stuff (anyone else think the purple Teletubby was gay?), since he never ran for office, he’s not a politician. However, Christine O’Donnell, who appeared as a pundit on Politically Incorrect, is a politician in my book, since she ran for Congress in Delaware. So what she says or said is fair game. What Falwell said would go in a book called Sh*t Pundits Say, if anyone wanted to write one. What about heads of special-interest groups? Unless they held office or ran for office, they go in the pundits drawer, too. So Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council (FRC) (a special special-interest organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group), I would consider a pundit if he were only ever head of the FRC. He served two terms as a Congressman in Louisiana and ran for state senator, so you’ll find him among the politicians. I must, at this time, offer an explanation to Republicans as to why most of the stupid has an R attached to the person dishing it out. When I looked for liberal stupid (and I found plenty), most of the quotes came from entertainers, not politicians. Also, a lot of the stupid had to do with Republican platforms, such as