Fun_People Archive
7 Apr
The Complete Bushisms -(Updated Weekly?!)

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri,  7 Apr 100 08:16:51 -0700
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Subject: The Complete Bushisms -(Updated Weekly?!)

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Forwarded-by: Kevin Johnsrude <kevinj@roguewave.com>
From: http://slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp,

The Complete Bushisms
Updated weekly.
Compiled by Jacob Weisberg
Posted Tuesday, March 7, 2000, at 10:30 a.m. PT

"I've got a reason for running. I talk about a larger goal, which is to
call upon the best of America. It's part of the renewal. It's reform and
renewal. Part of the renewal is a set of high standards and to remind people
that the greatness of America really does depend on neighbors helping
neighbors and children finding mentors. I worry. I'm very worried about,
you know, the kid who just wonders whether America is meant for him. I
really worry about that. And uh, so, I'm running for a reason. I'm answering
this question here and the answer is, you cannot lead America to a positive
tomorrow with revenge on one's mind. Revenge is so incredibly negative.
And so to answer your question, I'm going to win because people sense my
heart, know my sense of optimism and know where I want to lead the country.
And I tease people by saying, "A leader, you can't say, follow me the world
is going to be worse." I'm an optimistic person. I'm an inherently content
person. I've got a great sense of where I want to lead and I'm comfortable
with why I'm running. And, you know, the call on that speech was, beware.
This is going to be a tough campaign."-Interview with the Washington Post,
March 23, 2000

"People make suggestions on what to say all the time. I'll give you an
example; I don't read what's handed to me. People say, 'Here, here's your
speech, or here's an idea for a speech.' They're changed. Trust
me."-Interview with the New York Times, March 15, 2000

"It's evolutionary, going from governor to president, and this is a
significant step, to be able to vote for yourself on the ballot, and I'll
be able to do so next fall, I hope."-In an interview with the Associated
Press, March 8, 2000 (Thanks to Joshua Micah Marshall)

"It is not Reaganesque to support a tax plan that is Clinton in
nature.''-Los Angeles, Feb. 23, 2000

"I don't have to accept their tenants. I was trying to convince those
college students to accept my tenants. And I reject any labeling me because
I happened to go to the university."-Today, Feb. 23, 2000

"I understand small business growth. I was one."-New York Daily News, Feb.
19, 2000

"The senator has got to understand if he's going to have-he can't have it
both ways. He can't take the high horse and then claim the low road."-To
reporters in Florence, S.C., Feb. 17, 2000

"Really proud of it. A great campaign. And I'm really pleased with the
organization and the thousands of South Carolinians that worked on my
behalf. And I'm very gracious and humbled."-To Cokie Roberts, This Week,
Feb. 20, 2000

"I don't want to win? If that were the case why the heck am I on the bus
16 hours a day, shaking thousands of hands, giving hundreds of speeches,
getting pillared in the press and cartoons and still staying on message to
win?"-Newsweek, Feb. 28, 2000

"I thought how proud I am to be standing up beside my dad.  Never did it
occur to me that he would become the gist for cartoonists."-ibid.

"If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and
principles, come and join this campaign."-Hilton Head, S.C., Feb. 16, 2000

"How do you know if you don't measure if you have a system that simply
suckles kids through?"-Explaining the need for educational accountability
in Beaufort, S.C., Feb. 16, 2000

"We ought to make the pie higher."-South Carolina Republican Debate, Feb.
15, 2000

"I do not agree with this notion that somehow if I go to try to attract
votes and to lead people toward a better tomorrow somehow I get subscribed
to some-some doctrine gets subscribed to me."-Meet The Press, Feb. 13, 2000

"I've changed my style somewhat, as you know. I'm less-I pontificate less,
although it may be hard to tell it from this show. And I'm more interacting
with people."-ibid

"I think we need not only to eliminate the tollbooth to the middle class,
I think we should knock down the tollbooth."-Nashua, N.H., as quoted by
Gail Collins in the New York Times, Feb. 1, 2000

"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my
case."-Pella, Iowa, as quoted by the San Antonio Express-News, Jan. 30,
2000

"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?"-Concord, N.H., Jan.
29, 2000

"This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do
when you run for president. You gotta preserve."-Speaking during
"Perseverance Month" at Fairgrounds Elementary School in Nashua, N.H. As
quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 28, 2000

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."-Greater Nashua,
N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000

"What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they
basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas,
I think vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody
else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position.''-Quoted
by Molly Ivins, the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 21, 2000 (Thanks to Toni
L. Gould.)

"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who
they were," he said. "It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was.
Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there."-Iowa
Western Community College, Jan 21, 2000

"The administration I'll bring is a group of men and women who are focused
on what's best for America, honest men and women, decent men and women,
women who will see service to our country as a great privilege and who will
not stain the house."-Des Moines Register debate, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2000

"This is still a dangerous world.  It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mential losses."-At a South Carolina oyster roast, as quoted
in the Financial Times, Jan. 14, 2000

"We must all hear the universal call to like your neighbor just like you
like to be liked yourself."-ibid.

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"-Florence, S.C.,
Jan. 11, 2000

"Gov. Bush will not stand for the subsidation of failure."-ibid.

"There needs to be debates, like we're going through. There needs to be
town-hall meetings. There needs to be travel.  This is a huge
country."-Larry King Live, Dec. 16, 1999

"I read the newspaper."-In answer to a question about his reading habits,
New Hampshire Republican Debate, Dec. 2, 1999

"I think it's important for those of us in a position of responsibility to
be firm in sharing our experiences, to understand that the babies out of
wedlock is a very difficult chore for mom and baby alike. ... I believe we
ought to say there is a different alternative than the culture that is
proposed by people like Miss Wolf in society. ... And, you know, hopefully,
condoms will work, but it hasn't worked."-Meet the Press, Nov. 21, 1999

"The students at Yale came from all different backgrounds and all parts of
the country. Within months, I knew many of them."-From A Charge To Keep,
by George W. Bush, published November 1999

"It is incredibly presumptive for somebody who has not yet earned his
party's nomination to start speculating about vice presidents."-Keene,
N.H., Oct. 22, 1999, quoted in the New Republic, Nov. 15, 1999

"The important question is, How many hands have I shaked?"-Answering a
question about why he hasn't spent more time in New Hampshire, in the New
York Times, Oct. 23, 1999

"I don't remember debates. I don't think we spent a lot of time debating
it. Maybe we did, but I don't remember."-On discussions of the Vietnam War
when he was an undergraduate at Yale, Washington Post, July 27, 1999

"The only thing I know about Slovakia is what I learned first-hand from
your foreign minister, who came to Texas."-To a Slovak journalist as quoted
by Knight Ridder News Service, June 22, 1999. Bush's meeting was with Janez
Drnovsek, the prime minister of Slovenia.

"If the East Timorians decide to revolt, I'm sure I'll have a
statement."-Quoted by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, June 16, 1999

"Keep good relations with the Grecians."-Quoted in the Economist, June 12,
1999

"Kosovians can move back in."-CNN Inside Politics, April 9, 1999

"It was just inebriating what Midland was all about then."-From a 1994
interview, as quoted in First Son, by Bill Minutaglio

© 2000 Peter Langston