From Holden:

Yesterday’s faux town hall meeting in Kentucky was chock foll of juicy Bushisms.

Brownie Watch

Before I begin I do want to say I married well. I’m sorry the First Lady isn’t with me. She is a heck of a person.

King of Irony, Part I

You know, no President ever wants to be President during war.

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident, Part I

But Saddam Hussein was a sworn enemy of the United States. He was on the nations that sponsor terror list for a reason. I didn’t put him on the list; previous Presidents put him on the list. And the reason why is because he was sponsoring terrorism.

Let’s Forget Those Inspections, Shall We?

We gave the opportunity to Saddam Hussein to open his country up. It was his choice. He chose war, and he got war.

He Understands from His Days in Combat in the Alabama Delta

I understand that full — firsthand: War is brutal.

Getting a Little Action

Secondly, this is a country, obviously, that has got brutal action — this enemy we face has got no conscience.

Suicider Watch, Part I

It’s hard for me to believe that there is such brutality in the world where people going to a funeral to mourn the dead, and a suicider shows up and kills people.

Adjusting Your Strategery

And, listen, the training hasn’t gone smoothly all the time. I mean, this is a war. And you’re constantly adjusting your strategies and tactics — not strategies — tactics on the ground to meet an enemy which is changing.

Brain Lock! Hit Override!

I can’t tell you how good the caliber of our military brass — and those in the field, by the way, all the way up and down the line, are good, they are good people — (applause) — better trained, not just numbers, I’m talking about capacity to take the fight and stay in the fight.

Can We Get Some of that Training at the White House?

There’s a national police force, kind of like a swat team, a national swat team, that can move — they’re pretty well trained. They need some human rights training…. You can’t have a democracy in which the police don’t enforce the rule of law, but enforce their view of revenge. And so you got ethics training, rule of law training — all done by good troops who are embedded — who are side-by-side with this Iraqi police force.

Suicider Watch, Part II — Borderline Stupid Edition

The reason why the border is necessary is because there’s suiciders coming in from Syria into Iraq.

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident, Part II

And thirdly, you’ve got local police, and we’re lagging in the local police. And the local police — it’s just that, local.

Unless I Am

Now, having said that, they got these surveys — and I must confess I’m not much of a survey guy, but they got them, and most Iraqis are optimistic about the future.

Can’t Even Win A Debate With Himself

If Osama bin Laden were the top guy, and Mr. Zawahiri — he was the person that put out the strategy, by the way, for al Qaeda, for everybody to see. I don’t think he put it out for everybody to see. It just happened to be exposed for everybody to see eventually.

Brain Lock! Whoop-Whoop-Whoop!

That’s the short-term strategy. There’s also the strategy of making it clear, if you harbor a terrorist — the short-term strategy of dealing with threats before they come to hurt us — I say, before they fully materialize.

There’s the Executive Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Executive Branch

It’s been authorized, reauthorized many times. We got lawyers looking at it from different branches of government.

King of Irony, Part II

We are a rule — a country of law.

But You Doesn’t Have to Call Me Chimpy

There will be a lot of hearings and talk about that, but that’s good for democracy — just so long as the hearings, as they explore whether or not I have the prerogative to make the decision I made doesn’t tell the enemy what we’re doing.

Because He Broke His Crayon

There’s a lot of investigation, you’re right, in Washington — which is okay. That’s part of holding people to account in a democracy. But at one point in time the government got accused of not connecting the dots. You might remember that debate — we didn’t connect the dots.

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident, Part II

Generally, when you’re smuggling something it’s against the law.

When Life Gives You Lemons…

Now, some of you all may be old enough to remember the days of Prohibition. I’m not. But remember, we illegalized whisky, and guess what? People found all kinds of ways to make it, and to run it. NASCAR got started — positive thing that came out of all that.

Wyllie, I Presume

We’ve got people being smuggled by what they called coyotes into the deserts and asked to walk across.

Brain Lock! Hit Eject!

Step five is — on the accountability system is what we call disaggregate results. Do you realize in the old accountability systems, they didn’t bother to look at the African American kids stand-alone.

Fine is Lousy, and That’s a Problem

Now, we’ve got a problem when it comes to math and science. Our kids test fine. Math and science 8th grade test lousy, math and science in high school, and that’s a problem.

Uncharacteristic Honesty

I’m pandering, I know…