Bushisms

[Azat]

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe—I believe what I believe is right."—Rome, July 22, 2001

 

"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease."—Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001

 

"Presidents, whether things are good or bad, get the blame. I understand that."—Washington, D.C., May 11, 2001

 

"But I also made it clear to [Vladimir Putin] that it's important to think beyond the old days of when we had the concept that if we blew each other up, the world would be safe."—Washington, D.C., May 1, 2001

 

"A lot of times in the rhetoric, people forget the facts. And the facts are that thousands of small businesses—Hispanically owned or otherwise—pay taxes at the highest marginal rate."—to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Washington, D.C., March 19, 2001

 

"I suspect that had my dad not been president, he'd be asking the same questions: How'd your meeting go with so-and-so? … How did you feel when you stood up in front of the people for the State of the Union Address—state of the budget address, whatever you call it."—Interview with the Washington Post, March 9, 2001

 

"Those of us who spent time in the agricultural sector and in the heartland, we understand how unfair the death penalty is."—Omaha, Neb., Feb. 28, 2001

 

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.''—Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

 

"Home is important. It's important to have a home."—Crawford, Texas, Feb. 18, 2001

 

"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

 

"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

 

"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

 

"The great thing about America is everybody should vote."—Austin, Texas, Dec. 8, 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

 

"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."—Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000

 

"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."

 

"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."

 

"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 will have a foreign-handed foreign policy."—Redwood, Calif., Sept. 27, 2000

 

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."—Beaverton, Ore., Sep. 25, 2000

 

"The woman who knew that I had dyslexia—I never interviewed her."—Orange, Calif., Sept. 15, 2000

 

"Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness."--Ibid.

 

"I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together."—Bartlett, Tenn., Aug. 18, 2000

 

 

FROM: The Complete Bushisms Updated frequently.

 

Compiled by Jacob Weisberg and Bryan Curtis http://slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp