Governors Of Texas

"He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. [about George Bush, Sr.]"

"If you give us the chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels"

"The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self-examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest, and show a modicum of good sense."

"Oh, absolutely. No question about it. And the state of Texas, when I was governor, we built an awful lot of prisons. And to be frank with you, I made a deal, and the deal was that I would help pass the legislation and be for building a lot more prisons in Texas if I could get rehab programs for people who were alcoholics and drug abusers because I knew that over 80 percent of the crime committed in Texas was committed by people under the influence of alcohol or drugs."

"I am delighted to be here with you this evening, because after listening to George Bush all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like."

"But I'll tell you something sort of interesting. There's something, you know, there's something a little scary about funny women. Well, they're threatening. And there was a survey done one time where they asked women what they were most afraid of from men. And the -- their response was they were most afraid of being hit or beaten or hurt from men. And they asked men what they were most afraid of from women, and they said being laughed at."

"Oh, I would probably have raised more hell."

"Huey helps the FBI wage war on terrorism"

"Caesar: The Bush administration is accusing Zimbabwe's president of rigging the election over there... I wonder if this is what they mean when they say political satire is dead."

"The reason why the U.S. Government must be prosecuted for its war-crimes against Iraq is that they are so horrific and there are so many of them, and international law crumbles until they become prosecuted and severely punished for what they did. We therefore now have internationally a lawless world (or “World Order”) in which “Might makes right,” and in which there is really no effective international law, at all. This is merely gangster “law,” ruling on an international level... The seriousness of this international war crime is not as severe as those of the Nazis were, but nonetheless is comparable to it... On 15 March 2018, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies headlined at Alternet, “The Staggering Death Toll in Iraq” and wrote that “our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion,” and linked to solid evidence, backing up their estimate.... On 6 February 2020, BusinessInsider bannered “US taxpayers have reportedly paid an average of $8,000 each and over $2 trillion total for the Iraq war alone”, and linked to the academic analysis that supported this estimate. The U.S. regime’s invasive war, which the Bush gang perpetrated against Iraq, was also a crime against the American people (though Iraqis suffered far more from it than we did)."

"Democracy cannot function with a systematically lied-to public. Nor can it function if the responsible governmental officials are effectively immune from prosecution for their ‘legal’ crimes, or if the financial string-pullers behind the scenes can safely pull those strings. In America right now, both of those conditions pertain, and, as a result, democracy is impossible. There are only two ways to address this problem, and one of them would start by prosecuting George W. Bush.... UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this? How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves?"

"Editor's Note Despite the tremendous reader response to “The Adventures of Flagee and Ribbon,” we have decided to bring back “The Boondocks” on a probationary basis. However, should material be deemed inappropriate, we are prepared to bring back “Flagee and Ribbon” at a moment's notice. United We Stand."

"Huey squeals to the Feds' terrorism hotline -"

"Caesar: Whoa, some people in other countries are comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler because of his warmongering."

"I would tell George Bush, in my moment of frustration, I didn't have the grounds to call him a racist. But I believe that in a situation of high emotion like that, we as human beings don't always choose the right words, and that's why I'm here."

"Whether you love or loathe George W. Bush, you can not deny that he has learned how to read a teleprompter."

"The collapse of the Bush presidency, in other words, is not just due to Bush's incompetence (although his administration has been incompetent beyond belief). Nor is it a response to the president's principled lack of intellectual curiosity and pitbull refusal to admit mistakes (although those character flaws are certainly real enough). And the orgy of bribery and special-interest dispensation in Congress is not the result of Tom DeLay's ruthlessness, as impressive a bully as he was. This conservative presidency and Congress imploded, not despite their conservatism, but because of it."

"The (US) military reports no climate change emissions to any national or international body... George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol as one of the first acts of his presidency, alleging it would straitjacket the US economy with too costly greenhouse emissions controls. Next, the White House began a neo-Luddite campaign against the science of climate change. In researching “The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism,”... getting war casualty statistics out of the Department of Defense (DoD) is easier than getting fuel usage data."

"Woodward made former President George W. Bush “look like a stupid moron, which he was.”"

"George W. Bush is not a dictator, and to say that he is is an insult to people who live in countries where they are not free to express their opinions, not free to practice the religion of their choice, not free to vote, and are not allowed to travel freely inside and outside their country. However, President Bush has used the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as an excuse to try to alter the balance of power among the three branches of government of the United States and to bypass the traditional respect for the rights of even the worst of the worst that has, for more than two centuries, made the United States a model for oppressed people who want to bring freedom and democracy to their own nations."

"Even Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's socialist president, found this a stunning move for a nominally market economy to take. "Bush is to the left of me now," he said. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks.""

"In all my public statements, I was not at all in favor of anything he [G.W.Bush] did. He was a disaster for the country in his reaction to 9/11...Worst president we've ever had... To say that Trump is similar is ridiculous because it trivializes the situation.... He's got enough nutcases around him between Bolton and Pompeo that I would worry very, very much. But to say that he's George Bush is to miss the point. You've got to look back at George Bush... and understand what a mess he put us into. We have not gotten out of Iraq. We have not gotten out of Afghanistan. We have not gotten out of the War on Terror, this global war on terror, which is the greatest fiction since the Cold War back in 1945."

"President Bush inadvertently played right into the hands of bin Laden. The invasion of Afghanistan was justified: that was where bin Laden lived and al Qaeda had its training camps. The invasion of Iraq was not similarly justified. It was President Bush's unintended gift to bin Laden."

"This is the worst president ever. He is the worst president in all of American history."

"Bush paints in a similar fashion to the way he talks- affecting a folksy, homespun, plain-speaking tone, with just enough hame-fisted strangeness and bungling mistakes to keep things interesting."

"the so-called Global War on Terror of the oil-fueled, climate-denying Bush administration that killed more than half a million and demonized billions. People pushed back, there were victories, and they mattered."

"I think he's a man of good intentions. I don't doubt it. But I think he's leading us in the wrong direction."

"For eight years, George W. Bush promoted voluntary action as the nation's primary response to global warming and for eight years, aggregate greenhouse gas emissions remained unchanged."

"Bush's religious certitude and his singular determination became serious problems. In 2001 he scuttled the Clinton administration's efforts to bring a nonnuclear North Korea back into the family of nations, and two years later led the United States into an unwarranted war with Iraq. Saddam Hussein may have been a ruthless dictator, but he kept the lid on violent extremists and was no threat to the United States. Iraq was not implicated in the events of 9/11, and al Qaeda had no presence in the country. There was also no ISIS under Saddam and there were no weapons of mass destruction. By attacking Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein the United States upset the delicate equilibrium between the Shiites and the Sunnis that existed in the Middle East. The casualties and the cost- estimated in excess of $3 trillion- have been disastrous. But even worse is the continued instability of the region. Bush wanted to bring democracy to Iraq. That was naïve given the deep sectarian, ethnic, and tribal fissures that existed. What he achieved was to create the conditions for the continuing insurrection that is led today by ISIS fundamentalists. Whether George W. Bush was the worst president in American history will be long debated, but his decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president."

"The fighting in Fallujah was fierce. And the reaction among Iraqis to the American offensive was uniformly hostile. Members of Bremer's Governing Council threatened to resign if the attack continued, imperiling the handover of authority to Iraqis now scheduled for June 30. At this point Bremer blinked, then Rice blinked, and then Bush blinked. Late on April 8, just one day after his blistering pep talk, the president instructed Abizaid and Sanchez to halt the offensive in Fallujah. The following day, the troops were ordered to stand down. The Marines were furious. Thirty-nine Marines and U.S. soldiers had been killed in four days of fighting, and combat commanders believed they were relatively close to seizing their final objectives. “If you are going to take Vienna, take fucking Vienna,” Mattis snarled at Abizaid, updating a famous comment made by Napoleon. Bush had scarcely provided the robust leadership he advertised. One minute he was tough, the next he knuckled under. General Sanchez called it a strategic disaster for the United States."

"Bush actually was an eloquent president who gave many stirring addresses and proved to be a steady hand in time of crisis. Bush's grace and humility were evident from the earliest days of his presidency, when he invited Ted Kennedy over to the White House to seek common ground, as well as at turning points such as when he announced the capture of Saddam Hussein without taking credit for it in any way."

"On a more serious note, one of the major differences between the two presidents dealt with partisan politics. President Clinton had reached out to the Republican Party in an attempt to have bipartisan legislation and bipartisan views of the different issues that would be required. He further extended that hand by selecting Senator William Cohen, a Republican, to be his Secretary of Defense. Contrast that with the incoming administration of President Bush, which was filled with a number of neocons and had an intense distaste- and distrust- for anybody who was associated with either a prior administration or the Democratic Party in general, in spit of their high levels of expertise and experience. I'm talking about midlevel and low-level positions that required a nomination or an appointment to be made by the President. If they had touched the Democratic Party in any way or if they had worked in a prior Democratic administration, they could forget it because they just weren't going to be considered in any capacity. It's too bad because he lost a large number of top people who would have been loyal, dedicated workers- but it was not to be. From my standpoint, it was disruptive to good government. Long gone were the days of a bipartisan view of what was best for America, which made it a very distasteful environment."

"I said the President of the United States gets his jollies masturbating horses!"

"Osama Bin Laden and George Bush were both terrorists. They were both building international networks that perpetrate terror and devastate people’s lives. Bush with the Pentagon, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. Bin Laden with Al-Qaeda. The difference is that nobody elected Bin Laden... The United States supported Saddam Hussein and made sure that he ruled with an iron fist for all those years. Then they used the sanctions to break the back of civil society. Then they made Iraq disarm. Then they attacked Iraq. And now they’ve taken over all its assets."

"The book, The Faith of George W. Bush, written by Christian author Stephen Mansfield, reports Bush as saying, "I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen.... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.""

"Everybody had thought that the chads were where all the bad ballots were, but it turned out that the ones that were the most decisive were write-in ballots where people would check Gore and write Gore in, and the machine kicked those out. There were 175,000 votes overall that were so-called “spoiled ballots.” About two-thirds of the spoiled ballots were over-votes; many or most of them would have been write-in over-votes, where people had punched and written in a candidate's name. And nobody looked at this, not even the Florida Supreme Court in the last decision it made requiring a statewide recount. Nobody had thought about it except Judge Terry Lewis, who was overseeing the statewide recount when it was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The write-in over-votes have really not gotten much attention. Those votes are not ambiguous. When you see Gore picked and then Gore written in, there's not a question in your mind who this person was voting for. When you go through those, they're unambiguous: Bush got some of those votes, but they were overwhelmingly for Gore. For example, in an analysis of the 2.7 million votes that had been cast in Florida's eight largest counties, The Washington Post found that Gore's name was punched on 46,000 of the over-vote ballots it, while Bush's name was marked on only 17,000..."

"Just another sarcastic preppy who gave people nicknames and arranged for keg deliveries. Even then he had clearly awesome social skills. He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable ... He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation."

"The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush."

"He couldn't get his judges appointed. He had trouble getting his legislation passed, and he lost Republican control of the Senate. His approval ratings in the polls began to sink. He was already beginning to look like a lame duck president. With everything going wrong, he did what any of us would do. He went... on vacation"

"Taking his own counsel, which he admitted rested on his religious convictions and intuition, George W. Bush decided after becoming president that he would rid the world of Saddam Hussein, which already had congressional sanction in 1998. Bush made several public statements about his mission to remove "evil" tyrants and destroy governments that sponsored terrorists. Bush's instincts took more stimulus from Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neoconservatives in the national security system. Even before 9/11 the White House had investigated what a global war on terrorism might entail. For a president impatient with the complexities of foreign policy, the national security analyses provided little comfort. No other government (not even Israel's) had much stomach for redefining the continuing struggle against terrorism as a war upon a particular state, including Iraq. Even after the shock of 9/11 and the start of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM, the Bush administration found little international support in making Iraq Target Number One for international action. Instead, the consensus, communicated by the State Department and the CIA, was that Saddam Hussein's days were numbered and that his ability to attack his neighbors had been largely, if not completely, destroyed. Saddam was "contained." The president did not accept these assurances."

"This very big, very dirty secret — that war drives climate change — is carefully guarded. To keep things hush-hush the military is excused from oversight or obligation. This exception to the rule of law has always been the practice but G.W. Bush formalized it demanding language to that effect in the 1997 Kyoto Accords, which he later refused to sign anyway."

"US President Bush is a great leader, great friend of Israel and a source of inspiration."

"I'm proud of the fact that I stood up early and unequivocally in opposition to Bush's foreign policy. That opposition hasn't changed."

"In a 2003 poll, most Indonesians had a higher opinion of Osama bin Laden than they did of George W. Bush."

"I do not believe that the President was in any way directly involved in the leaking of her identity, but that was a very disillusioning moment for me when I found out when it initially hit the press, and I was in North Carolina, if I remember correctly, and a reporter shouted out to the President, "Is it true that you authorized the secret leaking of this classified information?" We walked onto Air Force One, and the President asks, "What was the reporter asking?", and I said, "He asserted that you were the one who authorized Scooter Libby leaking this information," and he said, "Yeah, I did.""

"We praise President Bush for his strong record on civil rights enforcement, and for becoming the first president ever to ban racial profiling by the federal government."

"Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leadership involved in the management of this war? They have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would immediately be relieved or court-martialed."

"a deficit that had control because George W. Bush gave the wealthiest people in this country massive tax cuts while waging disastrous and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"Unlike Clinton and Carter, Bush did not miss the presidency. “I really don’t,” he told an audience in 2011. “I actually found my freedom by leaving Washington.” Speaking with USA Today two years later, Bush said, “There is no need to defend myself. I did what I did and ultimately history will be the judge.” He recognized he had made mistakes, and he let it go at that."

"We had higher standards at the White House. The president said he was going to restore honor and integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn't live up to that. When it became known that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved."