Sunday, April 29, 2007

The Best Comeback Line Ever

This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. It is a portion ofan ABC interview between a female broadcaster and GeneralCosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military headquarters.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going toteach
these young boys when they visit your base?
GENERAL COSGROVE: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing,archery, and
shooting.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?
GENERAL COSGROVE: I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the
rifle range.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don't you admit that this is a terribly
dangerous activity to be teaching children?
GENERAL COSGROVE: I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle
discipline before they even touch a firearm.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you're equipping them to become
violent killers.
GENERAL COSGROVE: Well, Ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute,
butyou're not one, are you?

The radio went silent and the interview ended.

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's good but not necessarily the best. What about Churchill's put down to the women who told him he was drunk? "Yes madam but I will be sober in the morning. You will still be ugly!" Or words to that effect.

Anonymous said...

It's a good idea to check Snopes before passing stuff along as true.

Anonymous said...

Who cares, it made me laugh.

Laurence Boyce said...

There’s probably some law which states that all the best stories are made up.

Anonymous said...

George Bernard Shaw once found himself at a dinner party, seated beside an attractive woman. "Madam," he asked, "would you go to bed with me for a thousand pounds?" The woman blushed and rather indignantly shook her head.
"For ten thousand pounds?" he asked. "No. I would
not." "Then how about fifty thousand pounds?" he contined.

The colossal sum gave the woman pause, and after further reflection, she coyly replied: "Perhaps." "And if I were to offer you five pounds?" Shaw asked.

"Mr. Shaw!" the woman exclaimed. "What do you take me for!" "We have already established what you are," Shaw calmly replied. "Now we are merely haggling over the price."

Anonymous said...

To tedfoan - No. Not "or words to that effect". You are tone deaf.

You are aping how you think Churchill would have spoken 70 years ago because you have never read a single word he wrote. And you don't understand brevity - aka 'the soul of wit'.

Bessie Braddock, MP, once reprimanded Churchill in public, saying, "You are drunk!"

To which he replied, "And you are ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober."

See, tedphoan, "or words to that effect" don't work. It's the brevity, darling. The incision.

Is this interview on YouTube, Iain? This is one of the best put-downs of a lefty woman ever and I would like to see it to savour the moment. And send it to friends.

One thing you can say about generals - they think fast.

This reminds me of the head of the military sent into New Orleans, once Governor Blanco finally found it in her heart, and her financial interests, to ask Mr Bush for federal help after the FRINGES (not the real hurricane) of Katrina hit New Orleans.

Heading the military that had been standing by, waiting for permission from Governor Blanco, was General Honoré, a black man originally from Louisiana, and he jumped out of his truck right on a New Orleans freeway and began directing the US military from his mobile phone right there on the overpass. And after five days of sludgy non-happening under Mayor Nagins (also black) and the inept Governor Blanco, things started to move - as in really fast.

The lefty media, when General Honoré became available for interviews, began to whine about why all had taken so long, blah blah blah (they knew why; their governor hadn't allowed the military in) and General Honoré said, "See, your problem is, you're stuck on stupid."

I love American generals!

Anonymous said...

Verity - good night down the pub then?

Iain - you get some interesting visitors don't you?

I think I'm going to start using "Anonymous" as my nomme de guerre! Auntie Flo has it got it right!

Anonymous said...

tedphoan - the night is very young where I am. In fact it's not night yet. Duh.

Your little head is full of silly assumptions. One of them of how Winston Churchill, who you have never read nor watched on TV, would have spoken.

Clue: Pre Jade.

Anonymous said...

I agree with verity - tedfoan is very silly and has an incomplete understanding of the works of Churchill and has obviously never read them or watched them on TV. More power to your elbow verity.

We should rid the blogosphere of such ignorant people and, to that end, I have asked GCHQ to trace his email address so we can find out where he lives...hold on...apparently he's been located in Beijing! That explains it all. He's obviously an agent of the Chinese government who is obviously an agent of that regime who is tryng to destabilise Western democracy.

Well, that's sorted then. We can all sleep safely in our beds.

Well done, verity.

Anonymous said...

Poor little Anonymous 1:19.

So eager were you to be a little smarty pants, you gave your game away in your first sentence.

God! How pathetic! Why would anyone come back to Iain Dale if they're going to run into a brick wall of stupid?

Anonymous said...

What's this thing going on between verity and tedphoan? Are they like those folks in that Brit movie who wrote to each other for 30 years but never actually met? What was it called? Something like "18 Doughty Street"? Weirdos!

Anonymous said...

Out of here.

Exit pursued by moron.

JN said...

Sexism is cool!

marzolian said...

Verity, I als think most American generals are sharp cookies, but you didn't quite describe the situation correctly when General Honoré gave his famous line. He had just given a statement and in it he emphasized that they were still looking for survivors, and that he wasn't taking questions asking about the last storm. A reporter then asked a followup question about what had happened last time. That's when he came out with the line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBY_SqzJtI
http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/018401.html

Anonymous said...

Marzolian - Yes, I got it. I remember the interview. I remember all their stupid little faces looking disconcerted because they thought General Honoré was going to act jovial, like their local anchorman.

Anonymous said...

It's quite remarkable that one of the best comeback lines I've ever heard is one also uttered by Sir Winston Churchill.
A woman obviously not a fan of Mr.Churchill said to him; If you were my husband I would poison you to which he replied: Madam, if you were my wife I would drink it.

HM Stanley said...

There is also of course the famous exchange between Margot Asquith (wife to the great man) and the American actress Jean Harlow.

JH, pronouncing MH's name to rhyme with the larva of a fly, was corrected by MA with the riposte that the 't' in Margot is silent, just like it is in 'Harlow.

Anonymous said...

OMG! I so wish I heard that on the air! thanks for posting!

Anonymous said...

It may be a funny putdown, but the woman was still right.

Anonymous said...

Er...Dan Masq, you wouldn't have heard it on air because IT. NEVER. HAPPENED. Check the Snopes link posted above.

It's an urban myth which is about seven years old - gotta agree with Adam Rickett, this is the best place to come for real on the pulse stuff!

Wish fulfillment for neo-cons

Anonymous said...

Meantime in the DT Dave says he's going to be "sensetive and tough"-"crushing a grape" springs to mind!

Unsworth said...

LB "There’s probably some law which states that all the best stories are made up."

Indeed there is.

Anonymous said...

Ah, sadly it is made up. Fiction. An expression of untruth. Not grounded in fact in any way. And yet Iain has recounted it word for word as if it were entirely true.

Makes you wonder what else we should distrust about this blog.

Anonymous said...

But in this case Iain knew it was untrue. Presumably that isn't the case every time? Or this would be called Iain Liar's Fibbery.

Anonymous said...

Iain, Loved the put down! I can't see what the problem is either. I was taught how to use a firearm in the army cadets, and had several goes at shooting.

What a silly silly woman.

Old BE said...

It may be a funny putdown, but the woman was still right.

I once shot a piece of paper with an AK47 - does that make me a likely mass-murderer?

Anonymous said...

Too good to be true.

I can only find this in other blogs which makes me a little suspicious.

Apparently it was a radio interview - anyone got an audio copy?

kris said...

Iain

This one's done the circuit some time ago.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

wooo, this thread is getting bitchy!

I suspect latent homosexuality.

Anonymous said...

Is this a discourse on the nature of reality and the search for truth? Of course its not true - in any widely accepted sense - yet it expresses a deeper truth. My old friend Newmania had a story published about him recently in the Evening Standard, then The Sun and The Times - which was basically completely untrue. Makes you worry about the papers don't it?

Old BE said...

Makes you worry about the papers don't it?

Certainly does: whenever there is anything that I "know" about in the papers it is wrong and I'm sure that is true for most people!

Just as anyone knows that anything pronounced by the BBC is awash with Labour spin.

Newmania said...

Exit pursued by moron.

Honestly Verirty its " Exit pursued by a bear" tsk tsk

Newmania said...

Funny that when we think of the Churchillian we think of these few snappy rejoinders in fact he was far more typically a man who required laborious preparation to achieve his effects. The hours and days spent preparing the marvellous set piece war time speeches show his to be far more a serious writer than he is sometimes given credit for . Some of the emotive passages are without equal but the lyrical passages gain tremendous force from being embedded within the detailed and relatively prosaic sections . It is a clear level headed writing but at this distance we may be forgiven for enjoying the flourishes....like the following

'What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of pervert science. let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, '
"This was their Finest Hour'


I suppose its wrong but don't you sometimes wish we had something nobler to do than bitch about the rubbish collections ?

Old BE said...

That's the thing though N, we have the time to complain about rubbish because our parents and grandparents fought for our freedom.

It's a shame that having won the war we are now losing the politics (ie being dragged into a Euronation semi-willingly)

Anonymous said...

The old ones are the best (jokes).

But surely guns are designed to kill?

Women are not specifically designed to whore.

Sir-C4' said...

Bloody Brilliant!!!

Anonymous said...

"It may be a funny putdown, but the woman was still right."

Who let the self-righteous hippy in?

Anonymous said...

Churchill's view of a number of issues is legendary.

He describes Lord Brrrisford as being an 'orator, who before they get up, do not know what they are going to say, when they are speaking, do not know what they are saying, and when they have sat down, do not know what they have said.'

On chamberlain's attempt at peace with the Nazi's: 'You had a choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.'

On a former Tory, defecting and standing as a Liberal: 'The only instance of a rat swimming towards a sinking ship!'

On politics in general: 'A politician is asked to stand and he wants to sit and is expected to lie.'

Charles De Gaulle on Churchill: 'whwn I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong.So we were very often angry at each other.'

When someone called argaret Thatcher's office, the receptionist said, 'I'm afraid she is unavailable at the moment, who shall I say was going to listen?'

Newmania said...

INSULTS

Of G Brown
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination."
Of Margaret Beckett
"She had delusions of adequacy."

Of Millipede
"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

Of John Smith
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
GUNS
On guns, its easy to go off on a Libertarian shtick but its all rubbish really no sensible person wants US availability here. Their history is entirely different and as Conservatives we should respect that things are often as they are for good reason and moving one element may misunderstand the whole structure.
Engand Wales had 766 recorded murders in 2005 including the 52 victims of of July 7. Scotland was vastly more violent as usual with 93 deaths bringing the total to 859 (.Tells you al, you need to know about the odious Pictish horde.) Anyway the average is about two or three day and the risk could be called 15 per million per year.
In America 17000 deaths violent deaths in 2005 suggesting 46 deaths per day and this equates to 50 in every million per year. The old answer is that guns do not kill ,,people do. Maybe but it’s a bloody sight easier as a person if you have a gun and I drtead to think what would happen in the estates of London if there was ever any Liberalisation of gun laws. It is a culturally specific thing as we know from Switzerland but our culture would be struck down the way gin struck the Victorian Working classes.

So lets have no silly men pretending they think guns are harmless and desperately important civil liberties are at stake.
Put the toys down and back slowly away . Guns are a stupid affectation and THE WOMAN WAS RIGHT


PS GE Stokes ..love the last one especially

Anonymous said...

Why can't we be rude to Verity? Are we not allowed to be impolite to the vile, spiteful harridan because's she's nominally female?

Newmania said...

Oh heres the best reply I ever heard.A disgusting frined of mine was busy porking some horror ( she would have to be ) behind a handy skip and sadly for him the law turned up and yanked him trouserless into the well lit street.
Pissed he may have been, but he still had the wit to say
" What the matter sosiffer having an offensive person on my weapon?"


True story.

Newmania said...

Why can't we be rude to Verity?

Its the law.

*Clip round the ear* " Be on ya way sonny"

Anonymous said...

The anecdote reported by Iain may have been apophrycal, but the anecdote reported by me, starring General Honoré was fact. I saw him say it on TV while these self-important little reporters were clustered round him, self-righteous questions just bubbling up to be answered. And he just went - SLASH! It was a great moment.

A lot of anti-women inadequates on this thread, I note. The really frightened ones - the ones transfixed in the road by the headlights - are too mentally paralysed to think up actual responses to what I've written, so they bare their bottoms and shriek out names they imagine are hurtful.

Illiterate, ill-educated louts. Blair's Britain. You can keep it.

Anonymous said...

Newmania, you are very ignorant of English history. We had no real restrictions on firearms ownership until 1920, and they were only brought in because of establishment fears of a Bolshevik revolution. The Victorian drunks you speak of would have had the right to own and carry guns, the same as any other citizen.

The facts since 1920 are that successive Firearms Acts (1937, 1965, 1968, 1988, 1997) have disarmed the British people, and violent crime has risen steadily ever since the end of World War II. You may be happy to put your trust in the police when you need protection, I am rather more sceptical about their ability to protect me, and do not find it acceptable that canting politicians over the decades have forbidden me access to the means needed to protect myself. I will believe that guns have no role in personal protection when Tony Blair tells his bodyguards to turn theirs in. Until then, I'll view him as the same sort of hypocritical slime as every other two faced politico, and that includes Dave the Chameleon.

Anonymous said...

Verity, the fact that your contributions display a consistent paucity of humanity, intelligence or wit is more likely to be the source of your unpopularity than any imagined fear of your gender.

permanentexpat said...

Those who see it & say it 'how it is' are often disliked & gratuitously insulted, especially if they happen to be women.
Keep raising those morons' hackles, Verity.

Anonymous said...

Newmania writes: "I drtead to think what would happen in the estates of London if there was ever any Liberalisation of gun laws."

I contemplate such with great pleasure.

Please, British people, stop quoting statistics on American gun deaths unless they are specific. Yes, there are X number of gun deaths annually in the US, and guess what, boys and girls! Many of those deaths are those of perps in commission of a crime. In most states in the US, you can legally shoot someone who enters your house/premises without permission. So they walk in and leave on a stretcher. So sad. But anyway, they constitute a large part of the stats. So unless you are going to do a detailed analysis - and you don't have the background to do so - give the stats a rest.

People who wouldn't dream of commenting on Venezuela or Indonesia because they are aware of their ignorance about those countries, feel perfectly comfortable commenting on the United States, about which they are equally ignorant.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Permex. I don't in the least mind being put down with wit and intelligence, but it is the angry little boy jibes that occasion the rising gorge.

Nice to see you back!

Anonymous said...

If guns don't kill, but people do and cars don't kill, but drivers do, then why will the authorities crush my car if I fail to display road tax?

gary

Anonymous said...

Good thinking, Gary. Of course, they should crush you.

Anonymous said...

When I look at the last few postings I see Verity as an arse several times bigger than Cherie blair's!

Anonymous said...

My guess is that anon@11.47pm is right. I'm not an expert on American flag officers, but I doubt there is a "General Cosgrove" sufficiently well known that they don't have their first name used much.

There is however a "General Cosgrove" like that here in Australia. Peter Cosgrove was the head of the Australian forces in East Timor in 1999. And of course we have our ABC (essentially a BBC relay station).

The joke reads like "insert your country's preferred broadcaster and military figure here". Moreover I live near Gen Cosgrove and have met his son socially. That's the last thing he would say on air. It's nonsense.

Anonymous said...

verity said…..

Your little head is full of silly assumptions....
April 30, 2007 12:55 AM

Poor little Anonymous....
So eager were you to be a little smarty pants....
April 30, 2007 1:26 AM

I remember all their stupid little faces....
April 30, 2007 3:41 AM

I don't in the least mind being put down with wit and intelligence...
April 30, 2007 4:22 PM



Putting Verity "down" requires neither wit nor intelligence.

While I do not doubt that she can walk and chew gum simultaneously, her internal CPU is clearly insufficient to generate both good English and good grace in equal measures.

Indeed, in constantly "belittling" others as she does, she exhibits an ugly attitude.

Were I not an English gentleman, I might conclude that Verity was a caustic, supercilious, purse-lipped shrew with a spellchecker.

Anonymous said...

newmania - judge a man..

Anonymous said...

elmer - verity ain't no shrew, try the opposite end of the size scale..

Anonymous said...

I was sent this so called 'best comeback line' via email as a joke. I can't believe people actually think this is witty..it's really pathetic and so obviously fiction! (made up by a 14 year old I reckon)

I mean 'female interviewer' where's her name? Her last line of "but you're equipping them to be violent killers?" Just so unbelievable! Such a brazen set up..

As for 'the best comeback ever' It's just plain moronic, not even based on truth (which to me is essential for any joke) Women aren't 'equipped' to be prostitutes, they are equipped for giving birth and having sex - as are men. While guns sole purpose is to kill violently.

I don't think for a second any woman, let alone 'a lefty', would let that line go without the last word either - and there would just be so much you could say back to that. I found myself here because I googled it to prove to a coworker it was hogwash...thanks for the Snopes headsup!