Washington Post Readers choose the 2017 quote of the year

[DonViejo]

By Post Opinions Staff December 29, 2017

Earlier this month, we asked Post readers for their choices for 2017’s quote of the year. Among the more than 500 submissions we received, there were two overwhelming favorites and several other popular entries. They are listed below, along with reader comments explaining their choices.

The winner: “Alternative facts” — Kellyanne Conway, Jan. 22

Nearly 20 percent of readers submitted this exchange from just two days into the Trump presidency. “No other quote quite typifies this administration like this one,” wrote Joan Tindell of Tucson. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” why the president told then-press secretary Sean Spicer to make easily disproved claims about the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration, Conway replied, “You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and they’re giving — our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to that.” Moderator Chuck Todd replied, “Alternative facts are not facts; they’re falsehoods.” Conway’s quote “ushered us into our era of dystopia right away,” said Mary Wirth of West Lafayette, Ind. “The use of ‘alternative facts,'” wrote Ryan Grella of Los Angeles, “set the stage for allowing America to have two contradictory narratives to exist side by side. This only accelerated the divide in this country.”

The runner up: “Nevertheless, she persisted.” — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Feb. 7

When the Senate majority leader cut off Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) speech against attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), he argued that Warren had violated Senate rules against impugning a senator’s character. “She was warned,” intoned McConnell. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” McConnell probably didn’t expect that the last sentence would become “a rally cry for women to speak out, run for political office, and otherwise activate millions of women to engage more in the political process,” as Terri Saveley of Lawrence, Kan., put it. Thirteen percent of readers picked this quote, including Victoria Ford of St. Paul, Minn., who wrote “Throughout the year — the Women’s March, the staggering number of women running for office, the #MeToo movement, and more — women have persisted in the face of opposition, abuse, and dismissal.”

Honorable mentions

“Covfefe” — President Trump, May 31



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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/12/29/post-readers-picks-for-2017s-quote-of-the-year

[pangaia]

1. Alternative facts must be transformed to LIES!

No more of this alternative facts nonsense..

[Sneederbunk]

2. Not sure about Quote of the Year, but

Dotard is definitely Word of the Year.

[Motley13]

5. chalk one up for Kim Jong Un

his English vocabulary is better than the moron

[Maraya1969]

3. I can hardly stand to listen to Kelly Ann Conway. She does nothing but lie and obfuscate.

I wonder if she is like that with her family.

[Sancho]

4. Here's a few...Bowling Springs, Binomo, and collusion

Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, admitted Friday that she made an error a day before when she told a TV personality that two Iraqi refugees had plotted and carried out what she called the “Bowling Green massacre.” No such “massacre” ever happened.

The pranksters then moved the discussion to the situation in Binomo.
Mr Stolyarov, who was posing as Mr Morawiecki, said: “You know Binomo” to which Ms Haley replied “yes, yes”.
“They had elections and we suppose Russia had its intervention”, he continued.
Ms Haley then replied: “Yes, of course they did, absolutely.
“We’ve been watching that very closely, and I think we will continue to watch that as we deal with the issues that keep coming up about the South China Sea.”

“Frankly there is absolutely no collusion…Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion…I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion…I can only tell you that there is absolutely no collusion…There’s been no collusion…There was no collusion. None whatsoever…everybody knows that there was no collusion. I saw Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion [note: not true]…The Republicans, in terms of the House committees, they come out, they’re so angry because there is no collusion…there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats. There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion…There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats. There was no collusion with respect to my campaign…But there is tremendous collusion with the Russians and with the Democratic Party…I watched Alan Dershowitz the other day, he said, No. 1, there is no collusion, No. 2, collusion is not a crime, but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion. And he said that very strongly. He said there was no collusion…There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime. But there’s no collusion…when you look at all of the tremendous, ah, real problems [Democrats] had, not made-up problems like Russian collusion.“

[thbobby]

6. Traitors, Liars, and Thieves

I never really liked Cher much, but Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves was a great song.

[mitch96]

7. "I am not a crook! "

oops wrong liar........
m

[OnyxSharpie]

8. Although I understand the outrage

and the reference to 1984, “Alternative facts” was actually a reasonable phrase.

“Abraham Lincoln was America’s first president” is a statement of fact, not opinion.

“George Washington was America’s first president” is also a statement of fact.

So you can have alternative facts - those that are true, and those that are false.

We hear many alternative competing statements of fact every day. People have varying opinions about which facts are true, which are false, which are partially true etc. Absolute truths are hard to come by. The sky is not always blue and the grass is not always green.

Edit: I’ve been lurking long enough to know that I need to add that this does not mean I’m a Kellyanne Conway supporter or apologist. She is an evil twisted person.

[niyad]

10. glad you decided to come in from the cold.

[wroberts189]

11. Conway was responding to Spicer's false claims about hugest inauguration crowd size ever...

No alternative facts ..no debatable facts ... not even close to arguable. It was not the biggest crowd ever no more then the sky is green and grass is blue. The pictures and video cameras don't show a debatable/"alternative" fact. The phrase won for a reason... and everyone knows it. Lies...

Welcome to DU btw.

[Cha]

9. KICK! TY, DV