Bush Speaks

Bush continued his dog and pony show last night on Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Here are some quotes.

Revenge is a dish of hard work

I was disappointed and felt like they fumbled the – particularly
the Saddam Hussein – execution. It reinforced doubts in people’s minds
that the Maliki government and the unity government of Iraq is a
serious government, and – which makes it harder for me to make the case
to the American people that this is a government that does want to
unify the country and move forward.[..]

But then, when it came to execute him, it looked like it was kind
of a revenge killing. And it sent a mixed signal to the American people
and the people around the world. And it just goes to show that this is
a government that has still got some maturation to do.

One man’s semblence of control is another’s…

Baghdad in particular, in other words, if we don’t crack this now, that there is – the violence will spiral out of control.

Did you know?

Yeah, there is a difference between – look, death is terrible-

32 Flavors of Failure

Look, I had a choice to make, Jim, and that is – one – do
what we’re doing. And one could define that maybe a slow failure.
Secondly, withdraw out of Baghdad and hope for the best. I would think
that would be expedited failure.

Didn’t make the playoffs

No question, 2006 was a lousy year for Iraq.

Egg-U-topia

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, you know, that’s an interesting
question. I don’t quite view it as the broken egg; I view it as the
cracked egg —

MR. LEHRER: Cracked egg?

PRESIDENT BUSH: — that – where we still have a chance to move beyond the broken egg.

Shopping and watching TV bringing you down, making you feel blue?

Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight.
I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images
of violence on TV every night. I mean, we’ve got a fantastic economy
here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology
of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war.

That thing you do…9/11 Qaida Samarra 9/11 Qaida Samarra 9/11 Samarra

And I spent a lot of time thinking about it, Jim,
obviously. You mentioned five weeks. This is what presidents do; they
take time, they listen

No question there’s a – look, a year ago if we’d been
having this discussion prior to the Samarra bombing, I’d have been –
look what happened. And then the enemy responded. And by the way, it
was al-Qaida that bombed the Samarra mosque.

–scout