Recent Bushisms

Ross Ross

Plucked from Slate. Is Rove really going to want to get into a war of words?

"God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear."—Los Angeles, Calif., March 3, 2004 (Thanks to Tanny Bear)

"The march to war affected the people's confidence. It's hard to make investment. See, if you're a small business owner or a large business owner and you're thinking about investing, you've got to be optimistic when you invest. Except when you're marching to war, it's not a very optimistic thought, is it? In other words, it's the opposite of optimistic when you're thinking you're going to war." —Springfield, Mo., Feb. 9, 2004 (Thanks to Garry Trudeau.)

"See, one of the interesting things in the Oval Office—I love to bring people into the Oval Office—right around the corner from here—and say, this is where I office, but I want you to know the office is always bigger than the person."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004 (Thanks to Michael Shively.)

"More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than—I say more Muslims—a lot of Muslims have died—I don't know the exact count—at Istanbul. Look at these different places around the world where there's been tremendous death and destruction because killers kill."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004 (Thanks to Michael Shively.)

"In an economic recession, I'd rather that in order to get out of this recession, that the people be spending their money, not the government trying to figure out how to spend the people's money."—Tampa, Fla., Feb. 16, 2004

"King Abdullah of Jordan, the King of Morocco, I mean, there's a series of places—Qatar, Oman—I mean, places that are developing—Bahrain—they're all developing the habits of free societies."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004

Posted by Ross Ross on   |   § 8

§ 8 Comments

2

Ross, let's put this to bed. I mean, Bush is a bit of a dim bulb verbally (a bit? Bit?!), but there are so many BETTER reasons to expect the debates to be rough going.

Did you see Condi/Donald/Colin on the Sunday shows? All three of them had points where all they could do was cower under their notebooks and repeat their talking points verbatim over and over.

And these were the three who do WELL in public.

Johno Johno

6

B, Powell, like the other two, kept parsing single phrases from last year as defense against pointed questions (comparing "imminent threat" with "becom[ing] an imminent threat" in response to questions about what he thinks NOW about Iraq and intelligence-gathering. Powell was smoother than the other two, but I watched him repeatedly give empty non-answers to specific and pointed questions. It was kinda sad.

Johno Johno

7

He was surprised (as was I, and many others) that we didn't find WMD. And I think that it's important that we remind people that *everyone* thought that the Iraqis had WMD stockpiles, else why were the inspections such a big deal? That's what our intelligence told us, and it turned out to be wrong. Intelligence often does that. But it doesn't mean that we were wrong to invade, or that Saddam wasn't trying. And the mystery of what happened to the WMDs we know he had is still an important question.

Buckethead Buckethead

[ You're too late, comments are closed ]