The 2013 Political Pop Quiz

Let’s ring out ’13 with a pop quiz on politics. Relive some of the year’s most infamous follies, and no fair peeking at the answers!

1. When President Obama rolled out the health care website, he said it’d be as easy as shopping “for a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon.” But within weeks, he said…

a) “I was not privy to what I was not being told about whether the website would be working.”

b) “I was informed indirectly only when I asked specifically whether the website was not working.”

c) “I was not informed directly that the website would not be working.”

d) “If you like the way the website is working, you can keep it.”

2. Texas Gov. Rick “Oops” Perry spent much of ’13 trying to lure jobs away from other states. But when he sponsored TV ads smearing the California business climate, California Gov. Jerry Brown laughed it off. Brown told the press that Perry’s poaching mission “is not an important story, guys. It’s…

a) “not worth a hair on my butt.”

b) “like puke from a big baby.”

c) “like a baby’s dribble of pee.”

d) “barely a fart.”

3. In their bid to block Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, right-wingers said that he belonged to a nefarious group. Actually, they lied; the group didn’t exist. Hagel was supposedly a member of…

a) The Task Force to Propogate Shia Law

b) Friends of Hamas

c) The Coalition to Kill Conservative Talk Radio

d) The Committee to Cover Up Benghazi

e) Friends of the War on Christmas

4. Cory Booker won his Senate race in New Jersey. How many elected African-Americans are currently serving in that chamber?

5. Congressional Republican Michael Burgess, an abortion foe, said that a 15-week-old fetus already has “movements that are purposeful.” For instance…

a) they bend and shape their hands to form the word “God”

b) they put their hands between their legs and masturbate for “pleasure”

c) they raise their index fingers to signal that “America is number one”

d) they move their mouths “to register alarm about Benghazi”

6. Michelle Snyder, a high-ranking member of Team Obama, announced her retirement. She was duly lauded for her “outstanding public service” and “formidable work ethic.” Officially, her decision to retire was not tied in any way to her most recent job. What was it?

a) She supervised the construction of the botched Obamacare website.

b) She ran Obama’s failed push for gun reform legislation.

c) She ran Obama’s failed push for immigration reform legislation.

d) She ran Obama’s failed push for road-repair and jobs legislation.

7. Anthony Weiner was already on the skids in the New York mayoral race when a voter in a bakery called him a “scumbag.” What did the fomer Democratic congressman say to his prospective constituent?

a) “Eat my shorts, moron!”

b) “Kiss my stimulus package, putz!”

c) “It takes one to know one, jackass!”

d) “Stick yourself where the sun don’t shine, creep!”

8. Darrell Issa’s IRS witch-hunt (Obama supposedly ordered audits of tea-party groups!) blew up in his face when it was revealed that…

a) the Cincinnati IRS screening manager said under oath that Obama never ordered anything

b) the Cincinnati IRS office had screened liberal and progressive groups just as often

c) the screening manager who absolved Obama was a self-described “conservative Republican”

d) Issa had told the IRS Inspector General to focus only on the screenings of tea-party groups

e) all of the above

9. True or False: In 2013, a House Republican budget bill decreed that “none of the funds made available under this Act” shall be distributed to ACORN – a community group, long hated by the GOP, that had already died. In 2011.

10. Obama has prosecuted more government whistle-blowers than any previous president – despite his earlier rhetorical promises to protect whistle-blowers. For instance… (Pick two!)

a) “We need to empower federal employes as watchdogs of wrongdoing.”

b) “Freedom of the press includes freedom of speech for people who talk to the press.”

c) “They’re often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse.”

d) “Blowing the whistle is not blue state or red state, it’s about the United States.”

e) “So I say to whistle-blowers, ‘If you like your job, you can keep your job.'”

11. Who is Trey Radel?

a) the tea-partying congressman who blamed the Park Service Rangers for closing historic sites during the tea party’s government shutdown

b) the tea-partying congressman who said that Obama imperils America because his administration “has so many Muslim Brotherhood members” (the congressman couldn’t name any)

c) the tea-partying congressman who said that hordes of illegal immigrant kids have “calves the size of cantaloupes” from hauling bales of weed into America

d) the tea-partying congressman who voted to drug-test the recipients of food stamps – only to get busted for cocaine possession

e) the Republican congressman who reminisced about the good old days, when “we used to have 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes”

12. On the gun-fetish front, which of these events did not occur in 2013 (as far as we know)?

a) In a Kentucky restaurant john, a guy shot himself in the leg when his gun slipped off the toilet paper dispenser and went off.

b) At a right-wing rally about Benghazi, a patriot toting an AR-15 got so physically excited about “the Obama coverup that’s worse than Watergate” that he accidentally blew off his buddy’s big toe.

c) At a Florida Starbucks, a gal waiting in line for coffee shot her gal-friend in the leg when she dropped her purse and the gun in the purse went off.

d) At a gun show in North Carolina, a fetishist unzipped the case that held his 12-gauge shotgun when – ooops! – the shotgun discharged and wounded three bystanders. The incident occurred on Gun Appreciation Day.

e) In Queens, a less than conscientious mother inexplicably placed her .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, and 24 rounds of ammo, in her seven-year-old son’s Batman backpack…and forgot to remove the gun and ammo before the kid headed off to school.

13. Toronto mayor Rob Ford made us care, for the first time, about Canadian politics. Can you spot the only thing he has not done?

a) smoked crack during a drunken stupor

b) knocked over a city councilwoman

c) declared that Chris Farley should play him in a movie

d) talked about cunnilingus on camera

e) got thrown out of a nightclub for acting “like an idiot” (according to the DJ)

f) voted against AIDS funding

g) posed for a photo with his arm around a uniformed neo-Nazi

14. True or False: In response to the two million Americans who have enrolled in Obamacare, the Republicans are planning right after the holidays to roll out their own sweeping and substantive health reforms, thereby spotlighting the party’s affirmative agenda.

 

Happy New Year! Follow me on Twitter, @dickpolman1

 

 

Quiz answers: 1. (c) 2. (d) 3. (b) 4. One 5. (b) 6. (a) 7. (c) 8. (e) 9. False. ACORN died in 2010. 10. (a) (c)  11. (d) 12. (b) 13. (c) 14. Duh.