Top Bushisms in the Category of: Out of His Depth

 

 
1. REPORTER: "So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question. Is terr -- torture ever justified?"

THE PRESIDENT: "Look, I'm gonna say it one more time. I can -- if I can -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That oughtta comfort you. We -- we're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws. And that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government." - George W. Bush, Savannah, GA, Jun. 10, 2004 [AUDIO]
2. "1983, uh, Tip O'Neill, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole said, we've got a problem, let's, stret, see if we can't fix it. And they put together a 75-year fix, they said. First of all, I appreciate the spirit of Republicans and Democrats comin' together. But it wasn't a 70-yah, 5-year fix. This was 1953. We're only in 2005." - George W. Bush, Cedar Rapids, IA, Mar. 30, 2005 [AUDIO]
3. "Now, there's some rules, and it's important for you to know the rules. One, you can't take your money that you set aside in the personal account and go to the race track. ...Secondly, you can't pull it all out when it comes time to your -- you can't take it all and then go to the track. Is it just me, or do the first and second rules sound rather similar?" - George W. Bush, Tampa, Florida, Feb. 4, 2005
  4. "We declared all people equal, and yet, all people weren't treated equally for a century. We said, everybody counts, but everybody didn't count." - George W. Bush, Washington, DC, Jan. 26, 2005
-- Dubya makes the dubious claim that all Americans have been treated equally since around 1876.		  
  5. "One of the interesting lessons that the world can look at is Pakistan. You see, there are some in the world who do not believe that a Muslim society can self-govern. Some believe that the only solution for government in parts of the world is for there to be tyranny or despotism. I don't believe that. The Pakistan people have proven that those cynics are wrong. And where President Musharraf can help in world peace is to help remind people what is possible." - George W. Bush, White House, Dec. 4, 2004
-- I think somebody needs to remind Dubya that President Musharraf seized control of Pakistan in a coup d'état. Not exactly a model for the rule of law and Muslim self-governance.		  
  6. "Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans." - George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003 -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein.  
  7. "For the first time, young girls go to school in Afghanistan, thanks to the United States and our coalition." - George W. Bush, Cleveland, Ohio, Jul. 1, 2002
-- Actually, I think young girls went to school in Afghanistan before the Taliban regime took power, Dubya.		  
  8. "When we were kids, a lot of us were kids, growing up, oceans separated us from danger." - George W. Bush, charting new verbal territory on his "America protected by (or in this case, Americans separated by) oceans" theme, East Literature Magnet School, Nashville, Tennessee, Sep. 17, 2002  
  9. "It seems odd that with all the history it contains, this great building went more than a century without a name befitting its dignity. We've solved that problem today, and we've solved it once and for all. This building now bears the name of Dwight D. Eisenhower." - George W. Bush, Washington, DC, May 7, 2002
-- Actually, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building has been called by this name since Nov. 1999, when President Clinton signed the bill into law.		  
  10. "When we grew up, the baby boomers and everybody else, we never really thought we'd be attacked. I mean, the last thing that I entered my mind when I was getting out of high school in 1964 is that an enemy would attack America. And, yet, here you are graduating from high school, the first high school class to ever have seen the 48 contiguous states attacked by an enemy." - George W. Bush, Eden Prairie High School, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Mar. 4, 2002
-- I guess this is true if you don't consider MD, Oregon or California states (Baltimore was attacked by the British in the War of 1812, as was the White House, and locations in Oregon and California were attacked by the Japanese in WWII), and you don't remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, bomb shelters, and "Duck and Cover" drills.		  
  11. "We've been through a recession. That means things are going backwards." - George W. Bush, Nashua, NH, Mar. 25, 2004
--Ahhh, that's what it means.		  
  12. "We have overcome a recession. That means things are going backwards." - George W. Bush, Albuquerque, NM, Mar. 26, 2004
--Dubya seems intent on burning this meaningless phrase into the ground.		  
  13. "I want to remind you right quick what this country has been through, and the challenges this economy had faced over the last three years. First, we went through a recession. That means we were going backwards." - George W. Bush, Bakersfield, CA, Mar. 4, 2004
--I don't know... there's just something about this one that makes me laugh. 		 
  14. "Recession means that people's incomes, at the employer level, are going down, basically, relative to costs, people are getting laid off." - George W. Bush, Washington, DC, Feb. 19, 2004
--So that's what it means. 		 
  15. QUESTION: "In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say? And what lessons have you learned from it?"

GEORGE W. BUSH: "Hmmm. I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. I'm sure historians will look back and say, Gosh, he could have done it better this way or that way. You know, I just - I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet.
I would have gone into Afghanistan the way we went into Afghanistan. Even though what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons, I still would have called upon the world to deal with Saddam Hussein. See, I happen to believe we'll find out the truth on the weapons. That's why we sent up the independent commission. I look forward to hearing the truth as - exactly where they are. They could still be there. They could be hidden, like, the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm.
One of the things that Charlie Duelfer talked about was that he was surprised at the level of intimidation he found amongst people who should know about weapons and their fear of talking about them, because they don't want to be killed. You know, there's this kind of, there's this terror still in the soul of some of the people in Iraq. They're worried about getting killed. And therefore, they're not going to talk. And it'll all settle out. We'll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time.
However, the fact that he had the capacity to make them bothers me today just like it would have bothered me then. He's a dangerous man. He's a man who actually not only had weapons of mass destruction - and the reason I can say that with certainty is because he used them. And I have no doubt in my mind that he would like to have inflicted harm or paid people to inflict harm or trained people to inflict harm on America because he hated us.
You know, I hope I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't - you just put me under the spot here and maybe I'm not quick, as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." - George W. Bush, April 13, 2004 [AUDIO]
  

 

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