Televised Press Conference Quotes
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I made my mistakes. But in all of my years of public life, I have never profited - never profited from public service. I've earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say, that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.
Context
This line was spoken by Richard Nixon in a televised press conference in Orlando, Florida. (November 17, 1973).
As Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst learned in 1999, Richard Nixon was a crook… but on November 17, 1973, at a press conference about the Watergate scandal, Nixon was still denying it.
On national television.
Where you've heard it
Forty years later, NPR's All Things Considered did a short piece on how pervasive the quote is: it's in everything from Saturday Night Live to Family Guy to Futurama. If someone says it now, you can bet they're guilty.
Additional Notable References
- Mrs. Doubtfire makes a lobster say it.
- Hunter S. Thompson wrote about Nixon for The Atlantic in 1994.
- Oh, and there's that time Cory ran for class president on Boy Meets World.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
It takes a lot of guts to flat-out lie on national TV…or anywhere, for that matter. We guess if you actually aren't a crook, it's a little less pretentious.