| A Strangely Familiar Compendium
of George W. Bush's Campaign 2000 Quips |
"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'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
"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." — Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000
"We ought to make the pie higher." — South Carolina Republican Debate, Feb. 15, 2000
"I understand small business growth. I was one." — New York Daily News, Feb. 19, 2000
"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
"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." (sic). "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
"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." (sic) "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
"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
"Gov. Bush will not stand for the subsidation of failure." (sic). "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
"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
We must all hear the universal call to like your neighbor just like you like to be liked yourself." (sic). "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" — Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000
"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
Was it not strange that in November 2000 49% of the American voters were willing to have a moron such as this as President of the United States? Could it be that those who voted for him had not bothered to listen to what he said? Or were they as dumb as he is? In which case one has to wonder whether democracy is in the best interests of the people. It may be that rule by dumb yokels is preferable to rule by corporate capitalists, but maybe the best is rule by nobody at all. Or as they used to say in California (and probably still do):
Nobody knows what to do! Nobody cares! Nobody will look after the welfare of the people! Nobody is right for us! Elect Nobody for President!But although Dubya may have an attention span of fifteen minutes, may not be able to read or write properly, and may not be able to absorb information quickly, he may not really be a moron, tempted as one may be to think so — though on the other hand there's no evidence of intelligence either.
- Christopher Hitchens: Why Dubya Can't Read
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