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Quiz about  World Statesmen Their Slurs and Innuendoes
Quiz about  World Statesmen Their Slurs and Innuendoes

World Statesmen: Their Slurs and Innuendoes Quiz


There's a little Archie Bunker in most of us and world leaders, no matter how august, have proven this time and time again. Verbal effluence from some extremely unexpected sources.

A multiple-choice quiz by Coolupway. Estimated time: 6 mins.
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Author
Coolupway
Time
6 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
91,627
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Difficult
Avg Score
4 / 10
Plays
2229
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Who told an aide that the United States was "a Protestant country, and the Catholics and Jews are here on sufferance"? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. In the late 1960s, speaking in his native tongue, he made a peculiar and somewhat unsettling reference to the Jews, translated by some as "an elite people, sure of themselves and overbearing." Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. He once famously referred to the British (the sneer is audible), as "a nation of shopkeepers." Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Who referred to the Germans as "Belgians with megalomania," and said that a Prussian was "a Slav who's forgotten who his grandfather was"? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Who once referred to the Jews as an "irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards"? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Who said, "my fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. During a political fight about loan guarantees to Israel, who complained that he was "up against some powerful forces" and referred to himself as "one lonely little guy" against "something like 1,000 lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question." Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Who said that the black man "is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color -- perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments..."? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In the late 1980s and early 90s, which Balkan leader loudly agreed with Holocaust revisionists that "the figure of six million is exaggerated" and referred to "Judeo-Nazis" who "conducted a genocidal policy towards the Palestinians"? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Who were publicly referred to (with some frequency) as the "cow and calf"? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Who told an aide that the United States was "a Protestant country, and the Catholics and Jews are here on sufferance"?

Answer: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Within 20 years of his death we had a Catholic president (however questionable those Texas and Illinois election returns might have been). Indeed, but for the nonsense in Palm Beach County a couple of years back (the ballots were so incomprehensible that Pat "Amen Corner" Buchanan got high numbers in a heavily Jewish county), we would now have a Jewish VP.
2. In the late 1960s, speaking in his native tongue, he made a peculiar and somewhat unsettling reference to the Jews, translated by some as "an elite people, sure of themselves and overbearing."

Answer: Charles De Gaulle

The quotation in the original French is "un peuple d'elite, sur de lui-meme et dominateur." The meaning of the last word seems to be a key issue; "dominateur" can be interpreted to mean "dominating" or "overbearing," leaving up in the air the question of whether DeGaulle was a philo- or anti-Semite. DeGaulle often spoke in riddles, but it should be noted that the statement was made after Israel's '67 victory in the six-day war, and the surrounding context suggested that the onetime leader of the Free French was not greatly overjoyed about Israel's sudden military prominence in the Middle East.
3. He once famously referred to the British (the sneer is audible), as "a nation of shopkeepers."

Answer: Napoleon Bonaparte

Shopkeepers like Shakespeare, Churchill, Dr. Johnson, Dickens, Hogarth, Turner, Montgomery, etc., etc., etc. That noted shopkeeper, the Duke of Wellington, had an interesting little er, "mercantile exchange" with the Corsican in Belgium, at Waterloo.
4. Who referred to the Germans as "Belgians with megalomania," and said that a Prussian was "a Slav who's forgotten who his grandfather was"?

Answer: Konrad Adenauer

Some are tougher on their own. Adednauer, who rebuilt West Germany after its moral and military collapse in the 40's, was a crusty and cynical student of human nature who despised "blood-and-soil" German nationalists and spared no epithet in condemning them. He was in many ways the antithesis of the stereotypical humorless German.
5. Who once referred to the Jews as an "irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards"?

Answer: Richard Milhous Nixon

This from what was arguably the most pro-Israel president in history!
Nixon, a bundle of contradictions at every turn, even had a Jewish secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. The slur was part of a long, rather paranoid discussion Nixon had with Billy Graham, in which Graham himself did not exactly come off as a paragon of religious tolerance, either.
6. Who said, "my fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Answer: Ronald Reagan

It was said prior to a press conference; supposedly Reagan was doing a sound check of a microphone. The Great Communicator may well have been our funniest president (sometimes unintentionally); this rather rash bit of impromptu black humor did little to diminish his popularity. Much easier to laugh now, of course, in light of the subsequent disintegration of the "Evil Empire."
7. During a political fight about loan guarantees to Israel, who complained that he was "up against some powerful forces" and referred to himself as "one lonely little guy" against "something like 1,000 lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question."

Answer: George Herbert Walker Bush

This not terribly veiled shot at the Israeli lobby, with its attendant implications, probably ended up hurting Bush politically; observers, writer J.J. Goldberg preeminent among them, have suggested that this ended up costing Pa. Republican Dick Thornburgh a seat in the Senate shortly thereafter. Characterizing the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces as "one lonely little guy" does seem to strain credulity just the tiniest bit. (!)
8. Who said that the black man "is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color -- perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments..."?

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

Sadly, it was the Great Emancipator. The remainder of the quote is
eloquent: "...but in the right to eat the bread without leave of anybody else which his own hand earns, he is my equal... and the equal of any other man," but the statement as a whole was of a piece with others he made during his campaign against Douglas. It is unfair to judge Lincoln by today's standards, but the statements did come from his mouth, and historians will no doubt continue to argue to what extent these expressed sentiments diminish Lincoln's standing as an American secular saint.
9. In the late 1980s and early 90s, which Balkan leader loudly agreed with Holocaust revisionists that "the figure of six million is exaggerated" and referred to "Judeo-Nazis" who "conducted a genocidal policy towards the Palestinians"?

Answer: Franjo Tudjman

Former Croatian President Tudjman came off sounding like a Nazi apologist, but he had actually fought AGAINST Ante Pavelic's murderous pro-Nazi Ustashe regime in Croatia during WWII. What's more, the guy was a history professor! Tudjman did take care to
(re)distance himself from the Nazis before his death in 1999, but he had already made himself into a bit of a pariah, and no major European leader showed up at his funeral.
10. Who were publicly referred to (with some frequency) as the "cow and calf"?

Answer: Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay

Most prominently by Sri Lankan president Junius R. Jayewardene, but others, both on and off the subcontinent, said it as well. Mrs. Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, was castigated by political opponents (with much justification) as an elitist Brahmin autocrat and fair-weather secularist who muzzled the press and persecuted religious minorities.

She was murdered by two members of her own bodyguard in 1984.
Source: Author Coolupway

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Lanni before going online.
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