The Complete Bushisms
Updated weekly.
slate.msn.com
Compiled by Jacob Weisberg
Posted Friday, March 10, 2000, at 10:30 a.m. PT
"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 |
