50 Greatest political Moments of All Time

Politico has them. Some of my faves:

2000 — Al Gore’s sighs: Most debate experts said Al Gore beat George W. Bush hands-down at their first debate by providing more substantive answers. But it was Gore’s effort to show how much smarter he thought he was — including ostentatious sighs at Bush’s answers — that created the dominant impression for many voters, in one of the most self-damaging debate performances ever.

1964 — Passing the Civil Rights Act: Arriving on the Senate floor in February, the legislation stoked the longest continuous debate in the chamber’s history. It was not until June 10 that the Senate was able to get the necessary votes (at that time, two-thirds of the Senate) to invoke cloture. The vote was thought to be so close that Democratic Sen. Clair Engle of California, who could not speak, after having recently suffered from brain cancer, voted “aye” by pointing to his eye.

March 16, 2004 — ­Democrat commits Hari-Kerry: Speaking to a gathering of firefighters in West Virginia, Democratic candidate John F. Kerry tried to reassure the audience that his position on Iraq war funding was quite nuanced — and served up one of the most devastating sound bites in modern campaign history: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

Jan. 18, 1990 — “Bitch set me up”: Poor Marion Barry. The evidence suggested that what the Washington mayor really wanted was sex, not drugs, when he visited the Vista Hotel. But he succumbed when Hazel “Rasheeda” Moore kept suggesting they light a crack pipe. When police swarmed in, Barry realized that Moore had been part of a sting.

1998 — Isikoff’s scoop scooped: On Jan. 17, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff found his as-yet-unpublished story about a relationship between President Bill Clinton and a White House intern referenced by The Drudge Report — as only Matt Drudge can do it. “NEWSWEEK KILLS STORY ON WHITE HOUSE INTERN BLOCKBUSTER REPORT:23-YEAR-OLD, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN, SEX RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT**World Exclusive** **Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT**” Within days, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and ABC News would land with their own stories. The Internet media age had truly begun, as had a year unlike any other in Washington history.

Some I abhor:

June 6, 2001 — Senate switch: For the first time in the Senate’s history, majority control changed in the middle of a congressional session, with Vermont Sen. James Jeffords switching from Republican to independent, thus tipping power to the Democrats.

1971 — Pentagon papers lead to high court drama: The Nixon administration took extraordinary steps to try to stop publication by The New York Times — and later The Washington Post — of the so-called Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page set of internal government documents detailing the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Leaked to the Times by former State Department official Daniel Ellsberg, the papers set off a firestorm, and the Justice Department sought to halt publication. The case quickly made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 6-3 that any injunctions on publication constituted prior restraint.