The fierce debate over health care hasn’t led to a new law yet, but it’s produced some of this year’s top quotes, according to a Yale University librarian.
Fred Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at Yale Law School, is releasing his fourth annual list of The Yale Book of Quotations. His top quote: “Keep your government hands off my Medicare,” by a speaker at a town hall meeting in South Carolina in July.
“That struck me as embodying the friction and polarization on the role of government,” Shapiro said.
The original Yale Book of Quotations was published in 2006. Since then, Shapiro releases an annual list of the top 10 quotes, which he said will be incorporated into the next edition of the book in a few years.
Shapiro picks quotes that are famous, important or revealing of the spirit of the times. The quotes aren’t necessarily the most eloquent or admirable.
The health care debate sparked two other quotes that made the list: The shout of “You lie!” by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., during President Barack Obama’s September speech on health care and Sarah Palin’s “death panel” allegation.
Here’s the list:
1. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Speaker at health care reform town hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., commenting on the government-created Medicare program, quoted by The Washington Post on July 28.
2. “We’re going to be in the Hudson.” Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, responding to air traffic controllers asking on which runway he preferred to land US Airways Flight 1549 on Jan. 15 before he landed in the Hudson River.
3. “There’s an app for that.” Apple’s advertising slogan for the iPhone.
4. “You lie!” Wilson’s shouted retort to Obama’s address before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9.
5. “The Cambridge police acted stupidly.” Obama, commenting on a white police officer’s arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Mass., at a news conference July 22.
6. “I’m going to let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!” Kanye West, interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 13.
7. “Um, you guys said that we, um, did this for the show.” Falcon Heene, during an interview on CNN about his parents’ balloon hoax on Oct. 15.
8. “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel.'” Palin, posting on her Facebook page on Aug. 7.
9. “The governor is hiking the Appalachian Trail.” Spokesman for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford regarding Sanford’s disappearance on June 22.
10. “You give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.” Jesse Ventura, during a CNN interview May 11.
