MEDIA:
BUSHISMS
"If you don't stand for anything, you don't standfor anything!"
Gov. George W. Bush said to a packed rally at Bellevue Community College on Tuesday night.
"They said this issue wouldn't resignate with the People. They've been proved wrong, it does resignate." ("resonate"?!)
"I believe a military of high morale is conducive to keeping the peace..."
not the worst but...
"...when we find a senior who has to choose between food and medicine-that's not our vision of America." Am I missing something? Aren't the two parts of this statement disconnected?
"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus."
-- Kalamazoo, MI 10/27/2000
If we are going to save a generation of young people, our children must know they will face bad consequences for criminal behavior. Sadly, too many youths are not getting that message. Our juvenile justice system must say to our children: We love you, but we are going to hold you accountable for your actions. --Bush campaign literature.
(Mr. Dubya: should you be held accountable for your youthful indiscretions when you were a 30 year old "child"?!)
"I'm not going to talk about what I did as a child. What I am going to talk about -- and I am going to say this consistently -- [is that] it is irrelevant what I did 20 to 30 years ago. What's relevant is that I have learned from any mistakes I made. I do not want to send signals to anybody that what Gov. Bush did 30 years ago is cool to try."
--Gov. Bush in an interview with WMUR-TV in New Hampshire, when asked if he had used "drugs, marijuana, cocaine"
"I don't want nations feeling like that they can bully
ourselves and our allies. I want to have a ballistic defense
system so that we can make the world more peaceful, and at
the same time I want to reduce our own nuclear capacities to
the level commiserate with keeping the peace."
—Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 23, 2000
"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
—LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000
"If I'm the president, we're going to have emergency-room care, we're going to have gag orders."
"Drug therapies are replacing a lot of medicines as we used to know it."
"It's one thing about insurance, that's a Washington term."
"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun."
"Mr. Vice President, in all due respect, it is—I'm not sure 80
percent of the people get the death tax. I know this: 100 percent
will get it if I'm the president."
"Quotas are bad for America. It's not the way America is all about."
"If affirmative action means what I just described, what I'm for, then I'm for it."
—St. Louis, Mo., October 18, 2000
"Our priorities is our faith."
—Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 10, 2000
"I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial
profiling, which is illiterate children."
—Second presidential debate, Oct. 11, 2000 (Thanks to Leonard Williams.)
"It's going to require numerous IRA agents."
—On Gore's tax plan, Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 10, 2000
"I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to
answer questions. I can't answer your question."
—In response to a question about whether he wished he could take back any of his answers in the
first debate. Reynoldsburg, Ohio, Oct. 4, 2000 (Thanks to Peter Feld.)
"I would have my secretary of treasury be in touch with the
financial centers, not only here but at home."
—Boston, Oct. 3, 2000 (Thanks to M. Bateman.)
While speaking about KIPP Academy in Houston, Texas during the debate last night, would-be president Bush said:
"It's a school full of so-called at-risk children. It's how we,
unfortunately, label certain children. It means basically they
can't learn. ... It's one of the best schools in Houston."
So he thinks that "at-risk" means "can't learn?" And that one of the
best schools in Houston is filled with students that can't learn? What an idiot. (Thanks Derek Brandon)
... I've been talking to Vicente Fox, the new president of Mexico... I know him... to have gas and oil sent to U.S.... so we'll not depend on foreign oil...
-- on the first Presidential debate, 10/03/2000
"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."
—Saginaw, Mich., Sept. 29, 2000
"I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy."
—Redwood, Calif., Sept. 27, 2000
"One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations
rise above that which is expected."--Los Angeles, Sept. 27, 2000
"...more and more of our imports are coming from overseas."
-- On NPR's Morning Edition (9/26)
Larry King: "What do people misunderstand about you most"
George Walker Bush: "That I'm running on my dad's name... (!?!)
I'm proud of my dad... I reconciled my love for my dad a long time ago"
"Well, that's going to be up to the pundits and the people to make
up their mind. I'll tell you what is a president for him, for example,
talking about my record in the state of Texas. I mean, he's willing
to say anything in order to convince people that I haven't had a
good record in Texas."
--MSNBC, Sept. 20, 2000
"I am aperson who recognizes the fallacy of humans...,"
--from "Bush courts women in cozy 'Oprah' visit"
printed in the New York City edition of the Daily News, September 20, 2000, page 5
"A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an
economic illness."-- The Edge With Paula Zahn, Sept. 18, 2000
"The woman who knew that I had dyslexia--I never interviewed her."
--Orange, Calif., Sept. 15, 2000
"The best way to relieve families from time is to let them keep some of their own money."
—Westminster, Calif., Sept.13, 2000
"They have miscalculated me as a leader." —Ibid.
"...I don't need to be subliminabable..
"Orlando, FL, Sept. 12 -- when caught using subliminal technique in his dirty ads against Gore
"This is what I'm good at. I like meeting people, my fellow citizens, I like interfacing with them."
—Outside Pittsburgh, Sept. 8, 2000
"That's Washington. That's the place where you find people getting ready to jump out of the foxholes before the first shot is fired."
—Westland, Mich., Sept. 8, 2000
"Listen, Al Gore is a very tough opponent. He is the incumbent. He represents the incumbency. And a challenger is somebody who generally comes from the pack and wins, if you're going to win. And that's where I'm coming from."
—Detroit, Sept. 7, 2000
"We'll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers."
—Houston,Texas, Sept. 6, 2000
"We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans."
—Scranton, Pa., Sept. 6, 2000
"I regret that a private comment I made to the vice presidential candidate made it through the public airways."
—Allentown, Pa., Sept. 5, 2000.
Is he regreting what he said? Oh, no... he's regreting that we heard...
who is an asshole? (Bush's list of assholes must be very loooong...)
"The point is, this is a way to help inoculate me about what has come and is coming."
--on his anti-Gore ad, in an interview with the New York Times, Sept. 2, 2000
"As governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public
schools, and I have met those standards."
--CNN online chat, Aug.30, 2000
"Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness."--Ibid.
- "exemplarary"...
-- On 60 Minutes, 09/10/2000, after a rather interesting "expose" of the Texas schools and
the terrified kids waiting to take the TAAS (?) test.
The Texas governor, who spoke passionately of the need for
"plain-spoken Americans in the White House," tried to appear more
Southern gentleman than good-ol' boy as he and running mate Dick
Cheney shook hands with supporters at Naperville North High School
before cantering among the crowd at the city's Last Fling 2000 parade.
But "plain-spoken" took on quite an ironic meaning just before
Bush addressed the estimated 7,500 people who gathered in and
about the makeshift outdoor arena south of the high school.
A live microphone picked up an aside in which Bush described a
New York Times reporter who had written critically of his campaign as
"a major-league ass hole." The microphone also recorded Cheney's
rejoinder of "Oh yeah, he is, big time."
The disparaging words could not be heard by most observers over
the spirited playing of a marching band and the earsplitting roar of
the crowd. Cheney later refused to discuss the incident, saying
only that Bush "made a private comment to me."
---Naperville Sun - 09/06/00
"I don't know whether I'm going to win or not. I think I am. I do know I'm ready for the job. And, if not, that's just the way it goes."
—Des Moines, Iowa, Aug. 21, 2000
"We cannot let terriers* and rogue nations hold this nation hostile
(hostage) or hold our allies hostile.''
—Ibid.
On His Tax Break Plan Bush said that
"if most of the breaks go to wealthy people it's because
'most of the people who pay taxes are wealthy."
--Extracted from the Internet
"The American people wants a president that appeals to the angels..."
Bush in his speech during the GOP convention. Aug/2000
"This case has had full analyzation and has been looked at a lot.
I understand the emotionality of death penalty cases."
--Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 23, 2000 (Thanks to Johnny Green.)
"I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself,
but for predecessors as well."
—Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2001
"My pro-life position is I believe there's life. It's not necessarily based in religion. I think there's a life there, therefore the notion of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."
--Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 23, 2001
"Then I went for a run with the other dog and just walked. And I started thinking about a lot of things. I was able to—I can't remember what it was. Oh, the inaugural speech, started thinking through that."
—Pre-inaugural interview with U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 22, 2001 issue
"I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure."
—Interview with the Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001
"Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment."
—Interview with the New York Times, Jan. 14, 2001
"The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants."
—Interview with the New York Times, Jan. 14, 2001
"If he's—the inference is that somehow he thinks slavery is a—is a noble institution I would—I would strongly reject that assumption—that John Ashcroft is a open-minded, inclusive person."
—NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw, Jan. 14, 2001
"She's just trying to make sure Anthony gets a good meal—Antonio."
—On Laura Bush inviting Justice Antonin Scalia to dinner at the White House.
NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw, Jan. 14, 2001
"I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be—a literate country and a hopefuller country."
—Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2001
"I would have to ask the questioner. I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning. On the other hand, I firmly believe she'll be a fine secretary of labor. And I've got confidence in Linda Chavez. She is a—she'll bring an interesting perspective to the Labor Department."
—Austin, Texas, Jan. 8, 2001
"I do remain confident in Linda. She'll make a fine labor secretary. From what I've read in the press accounts, she's perfectly qualified."
—Austin, Texas, Jan. 8, 2001
"I mean, these good folks are revolutionizing how businesses conduct their business. And, like them, I am very optimistic about our position in the world and about its influence on the United States. We're concerned about the short-term economic news, but long-term I'm optimistic.
And so, I hope investors, you know—secondly, I hope investors hold investments for periods of time—that I've always found the best investments are those that you salt away based on economics."
—Austin, Texas, Jan. 4, 2001
"The person who runs FEMA is someone who must have the trust of the president. Because the person who runs FEMA is the first voice, often times, of someone whose life has been turned upside down hears from."
—Austin, Texas, Jan. 4, 2001
"She is a member of a labor union at one point."
—Announcing his nomination of Linda Chavez as secretary of labor. Austin, Texas, Jan. 2, 2001
"Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods."
—Austin, Texas, Dec. 20, 2000
"I am mindful of the difference between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I assured all four of these leaders that I know the difference, and that difference is they pass the laws and I execute them."
—Washington, D.C., Dec. 18, 2000
"The great thing about America is everybody should vote."
—Austin, Texas, Dec. 8, 2000
"Dick Cheney and I do not want this nation to be in a recession. We want anybody who can find work to be able to find work."
—60 Minutes II, Dec. 5, 2000
"I knew it might put him in an awkward position that we had a discussion before finality has finally happened in this presidential race."
—Describing a phone call to Sen. John Breaux. Crawford, Texas, Dec. 2, 2000
"As far as the legal hassling and wrangling and posturing in Florida, I would suggest you talk to our team in Florida led by Jim Baker."
—Crawford, Texas, Nov. 30, 2000
"The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law."
—Austin, Texas, Nov. 22, 2000
"They misunderestimated me."
—Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000
"...I quit drinking alcohol in 1986..."
1988 (2 years later) - "You fucking son of a bitch. I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this." A drunken George W., storming into a Mexican diner in Dallas, and approaching Al Hunt (Wall Street Journal editor). Al was dining with his wife and 4 year old son, when Dubya interrupted cursing for several minutes in front of everyone.