George W. Bush

• "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
  • re Kosovo, Houston Chronicle April 9, 1999

• "These terrorist acts and, you know, the responses have got to end in order for us to get the framework - the groundwork - not framework, the groundwork to discuss a framework for peace, to lay the - all right."
  • Referring to former Senator George Mitchell's report on Middle East peace, Crawford Texas, August 13th, 2001.

• "Quotas are bad for America. It's not the way America is all about."
  • St. Louis, Missouri, October 18th 2000

• "If affirmative action means what I just described, what I'm for, then I'm for it."
  • St. Louis, Missouri, October 18th 2000

• "My Geordie is probably just about as bad as my English."
  • Asked if he will be able to understand the accent in Tony Blair's constituency in North-East England [1]

• "Bring 'em on"
  • When discussing the war on Iraq

• "There ought to be limits to freedom."
  • In response to GWBush.com, a website parodying him

• "In our time, respect for the right to life calls us to defend the sick and the dying, persons with disabilities and birth defects, and all who are weak and vulnerable. And this self-evident truth calls us to value and to protect the lives of innocent children waiting to be born."
  • Jan 22, 2003, speaking at the at 30th Annual March for Life

• "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it."
  • Source: October 1, 2003, Suntimes.com

• "Teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."
  • Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

• "Dick Cheney and I do not want this nation to be in a recession. We want anybody who can find work to be able to find work."
  • 60 Minutes II, Dec. 5, 2000

• "I love freedom of speech."
  • Said in reference to a protest during his address to the Australian Parliment

• "I'm a patient man. And when I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man."

• "It's amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency."
  • 2001 June 14, to Göran Persson, unaware he was still on live TV (according to Moore Stupid White Men)

• "There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, it's probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on…shame on you. It fool me. We can't get fooled again."[1]

• "It's very important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce."
  • Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001

• "There's one terrible pilot."
  • 2001 Dec 4, convention center, Orlando, Florida—what he claims to have thought about the first September Eleventh crash[1]

• "Well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on."
  • 2002 Jan 5, convention center, Ontario, California[1]—there was no live broadcast of the first September Eleventh crash

• "I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is [and] I am truly not that concerned about him."
  • Brady briefing room, 2002 Mar 13[1]

• "We'll do everything we can to remind people that we've never been a nation of conquerors."
  • Roosevelt Room, 2002 Dec 4[1]

• "I said you were a man of peace. I want you to know I took immense crap for that."
  • to Ariel Sharon[1]

• "The best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."
  • FOX interview w/ Brit Hume, 2003 Sep 23—cf. the chestnut that those with the king's ear have the power

• "So what's the difference?"
  • 2003 Dec 16, to Diane Sawyer, as she presses about the administration's verbiage about Iraqi WMD v the fact none were used or foundclass="external">[1

• "They have mis-underestimated us!"
  • 2003 address referring to the war on Terrorism, perhaps deliberately repeating an earlier malaprop of his own

• "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."
  • Ken Auletta "Fortress Bush", The New Yorker, Jan 19, 2004, p64

• "We're a peaceful nation. Yet, as we have learned, so suddenly and so tragically, there can be no peace in a world of sudden terror. In the face of today's new threat, the only way to pursue peace is to pursue those who threaten it. We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it."

• "I need some ribs."
  • Remarks by the President to the Press Pool, Nothin' Fancy Cafe, Roswell, New Mexico -- Whitehouse Transcript[1], Office of the Press Secretary, January 22, 2004.

• "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth…and rid the world of evil."
  • from Woodward Bush at War; does not specify who said it

• "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God."
  • That's a different Bush