Voting Station

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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U.S. Senator

The Resume

    (March 16, 1927-March 26, 2003)
    Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma
    Counselor to the President for Urban Affairs (1969-71)
    US Ambassador to India (1973-75) and the United Nations (1975-76)
    US Senator from New York (1977-2001)
    Democrat
    Wrote 'Beyond the Melting Pot' (1963), 'The Negro Family: The Case for National Action' (1965), 'Coping: Essays on the Practice of Government' (1973), 'Business and Society in Change' (1975), 'On the Law of Nations' (1990), 'Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy' (1996) and 'Secrecy: The American Experience' (1998)
    Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2000)

Why he might be annoying:

    He wanted to join the diplomatic corps after college, but flunked the Foreign Service Exam. (Rather ironic for a future ambassador.)
    He spoke with the same sort of affected patrician accent as William F. Buckley.
    He publicly campaigned for Hubert Humphrey while privately advising Richard Nixon (1968).
    He infamously wrote a memo to President Nixon declaring, 'The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of 'benign neglect.'' (1970)
    As UN Ambassador, he ensured that the Security Council did nothing about Indonesia invading East Timor, which he later described as his most 'shameless' act.
    He attacked Ronald Reagan's tax cuts as 'an auction of the Treasury' based on 'a magic theory' -- then voted for them anyway (1981).
    He was named 'king of pork' by the Office and Management and Budget for sponsoring more local projects than any other Senator (1987).
    During a dispute over earmarks, he slugged Senator Kit Bond.
    An aide said, 'It's not possible to flatter him too much. He'll take it as his due.'

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was ten when his father abandoned the family.
    After the UN General Assembly passed a resolution equating Zionism to racism, he declared that the US 'does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act' and embraced Israeli delegate Chaim Herzog.
    In response, the PLO's UN representative, Zehdi Terzi, threatened his life.
    He was one of the first public figures to predict that the Soviet Union would collapse because of its internal problems.
    Senator Frank Church observed, 'That man just got up and spoke for 45 minutes with no notes and no reference materials, and proceeded to delineate the entire history of the Panama Canal.'
    George Will noted, 'Moynihan wrote more books than most Senators have read.'
    The Almanac of American Politics described him as 'the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson.'
    He liked to display two magazine covers at his office: a 1979 issue of the Nation titled 'Moynihan: The Conscience of a Neoconservative' and a 1981 issue of the New Republic titled 'Pat Moynihan: Neo-Liberal.'
    He said, 'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 10 Votes: 30.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 25 Votes: 44.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 8 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 28 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 20 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 30 Votes: 50.0% Annoying