Go ahead, say what you really mean

Last week, former Speaker of the House John Boehner called presidential candidate Ted Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh.” The way people reacted to that you’d think Boehner said something original. Even the Satanists were offended, according to the website RedState.

Politicians have been dissing each other since the beginning of time. Abraham Lincoln gave as good as he got, and the Founding Fathers were experts at political potty mouthing.

Here, courtesy of Insults.net, are a few examples of political insults from history.

... as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65)

A crafty and lecherous old hypocrite whose very statue seems to gloat on the wenches as they walk the States House yard. William Cobbett (1763-1835), on Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), American statesman and scientist

A lamentably successful cross between a fox and a hog. James G. Blaine, American politician, on Benjamin Franklin Butler (1818-93), American soldier

Filthy Story-Teller, Despot, Liar, Thief, Braggart, Buffoon, Usurper, Monster, Ignoramus Abe, Old Scoundrel, Perjurer, Robber, Swindler, Tyrant, Field-Butcher, Land-Pirate.
Harper's Weekly on Abraham Lincoln

Garfield has shown that he is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85), 18th American president, on James A. Garfield (1831-81), 20th American president

He has a bungalow mind. Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th American president on Warren Harding (1865-1923), 29th American president

He has all the characteristics of a dog except loyalty. Sam Houston, American politician, on Thomas Jefferson Green (1801-63), American politician

He slept more than any other president, whether by day or night. Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) on Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. H. L Mencken (1880-1956), American journalist and critic, on Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), American president

He's thin, boys. He's thin as piss on a hot rock. Senator William E. Jenner on W. Averell Harriman (1891-1986), governor of New York

His idea of getting hold of the right end of the stick is to snatch it from the hands of somebody who is using it effectively, and to hit him over the head with it. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, on Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th American president

How can they tell?
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) on hearing that American President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) had died

Like rotten mackerel by moonlight, he shines and stinks. John Randolph, American politician, on Edward Livingstone (1764-1836), American politician

One could drive a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact. David Houston, American politician, on William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American lawyer and politician

One could not even dignify him with the name of a stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole on the air. George Orwell (1903-50) on Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947)

Reader, suppose you were an idiot; and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), American writer, on Congress

The General is suffering from mental saddle sores. Harold L. Ickes, American Secretary of the Interior, on Hugh S. Johnson (1882-1942), American soldier

We did not conceive it possible that even Mr. Lincoln would produce a paper so slipshod, so loose-joined, so puerile, not alone in literary construction, but in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp. He has outdone himself.
Chicago Times (1863) on Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (19 November 1863)