WMD jokes

[jdl22]

I'm wondering what you all think of Bush's jokes about looking for WMD's. For those of you that didn't see it Bush was at a dinner where it's common for the president to make humorous comments in his speach. During this speach there was a slide show. In one slide he was looking under a chair or desk and he said something like 'Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be around here somewhere.' He then made another similar joke on the next slide.

I personally don't think it was tasteful to make light of something that brought us into a war in which billions of dollars have been spent and over 10,000 people have died including more than 500 American soldiers.

What puzzles me about this is that Bush has now twice (possibly more times that I'm unaware of) brought up the WMD issue unsolicited since it was revealed that there almost certainly were no WMDs in Iraq. The first was in the state of the union earlier this year. Isn't it a bad move to bring up issues that hurt you? Nobody thinks the WMD situation was good even if they think the war was a good thing. Isn't this strategically as bad as Kerry making jokes about protesting the Vietnam war with Jane Fonda or being on both sides of every issue?

Did Rove fall asleep at the wheel? You would think the guy that convinced people in South Carolina that McCain fathered an illegitimate black child would look over dubya's speaches.

[lil']

I saw a clip of the WMD jokes. It was mixed in with another joke that wasn't funny, so you know he probably wrote the "jokes" himself.

I'm not upset about it, but anything that can be used to draw negative attention to yourself in an election year is dumb.

[daryn]

speech.

[jdl22]

excellent point

You have my apologies.

[ChristinaB]

He says a lot of dumb stuff:

"There's a lot of people in the Middle East who are desirous to get into the Mitchell process. And.. but first things first. The.. 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." - 8/13/01

"The ground grounds me." - 8/13/01

"My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the—in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen." - 8/13/01

“It is white.” (when asked what the White House is like by a student at Morningside Primary School in East London ) - 7/23/01

''I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe.. I believe what I believe is right." - 7/22/01

"The true greatness of America are the people." - 7/2/01

(When asked what Independance Day meant to him on a visit to the Jefferson memorial): "It means what these words say, for starters. The great inalienable rights of our country. We're blessed with such values in America. And I — it's — I'm a proud man to be the nation based upon such wonderful values." - 7/2/01

"The best of America occurs when people walk up and say, Mr. President, I'm praying for you." - 6/21/01

"I want to thank you for coming to the White House to give me an opportunity to urge you to work with these five senators and three congressmen, to work hard to get this trade promotion authority moving. The power that be, well most of the power that be, sits right here." - 6/18/01

(When asked whether Poles might soon travel to the US without visas): "Chicago is a city with many many people of Polish heritage." - 6/15/01

"There's nothing more inspiring than instilling in people the will to do away with leaders who were done away with decades ago. We can build an open Europe -- a Europe without Hitler and Stalin, without Brezhnev and Honecker and Ceaucescu and, yes, without Milosevic." - 6/15/01 (Poland)

"Europe should have more countries." - 6/14/01 (Sweden)

"We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." - 6/14/01 (Sweden)

"I haven't had a chance to talk, but I'm confident we'll get a bill that I can live with if we don't." ... "Can't living with the bill means it won't become law" - 6/13/01 (Belgium, regarding the patients' bill of rights).

"Sometimes I catch some of those elected officials, maybe not saying things about me that my mother would like to hear. But the tone is changing. It is. We're working hard to change it." - 6/8/01

"Russia is no longer our enemy and therefore we shouldn't be locked into a Cold War mentality that says we keep the peace by blowing each other up. In my attitude, that's old, that's tired, that's stale." - 6/8/01

"I'm gracious that my brother Jeb is concerned about the hemisphere as well." - 6/4/01

"Our nation must come together to unite." - 6/4/01


From an interview printed in The New York Times, 6/6/01:
Q. What do you find most frustrating about the job?
A. "That it's hard to run out of the White House and jog on the mall."
Q. Have you ever done that?
A. "No. That's why I find it frustrating. I am not a frustrated person. I'm content about the job, pleased with the progress we're making. You asked about frustration. I am content."


"At 3:00 p.m., in every town and city, village and hamlet in America, Americans of all walks of life are posing for a moment of silence." - 6/4/01 (make sure your hair looks right!)

"It's important for young men and women who look at the Nebraska champs to understand that quality of life is more than just blocking shots." - 3/31/01 (to the University of Nebraska women's volleyball team)

"If a person doesn't have the capacity that we all want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the far distant future, if at all." - 5/22/01 (to the Hispanic Scholarship Institute)

"The explorationists are willing to only move equipment during the winter, which means they'll be on ice roads, and remove the equipment as the ice begins to melt, so that the fragile tundra is protected." - 5/18/01

"To the C students, I say to you: you, too, can be president of the United States.” - 5/21/01

"If you're like me you won't remember everything you did here" - 5/21/01 (commencement speech at Yale.)

"But I also made it clear to [Vladimir Putin] that it's important to think beyond the old days of when we had the concept that if we blew each other up, the world would be safe." - 5/01/01

"Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend theirself." - 4/25/01

"First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country." (on the Kyoto accord) - 4/24/01

"It's very important for folks to understand that when there's more trade, there's more commerce." - 4/21/01

"Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican." (refusing to answer reporters' questions at the Summit of the Americas) - 4/21/01

"We understand where the power of this country lay. It lays in the hearts and souls of Americans. It must lay in our pocketbooks." - 4/11/01

We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end." - 4/10/01

"The Senate needs to leave enough money in the proposed budget to not only reduce all marginal rates, but to eliminate the death tax, so that people who build up assets are able to transfer them from one generation to the next, regardless of a person's race." - 4/5/01

"It would be helpful if we opened up ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). I think it's a mistake not to. And I would urge you all to travel up there and take a look at it, and you can make the determination as to how beautiful that country is." - 3/29/01

"Diseases...such as arthritis and osteoporosis can be less be-a, be-a-dilatating." - 3/21/01

"There's money in the budget for Medicare.. it's a doubling." - 3/21/01

"If you set high expectations for every single child, good folks'll follow." - 3/20/01

"We've got to end the process-oriented world of public schools." - 3/20/01

"One of the failures...I'm gonna...I won't call it 'failures'...efficiencies in our system--oftentimes our teachers are not taught to teach a curriculum that works." - 3/20/01

"The role of government is to create an environment that encourages Hispanic-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, anybody-kind-of-owned businesses." - 3/19/01

"Our hemisphere, by the way, is not going to be an afterthought for this administration." - 3/19/01

"...thousands of small businesses--Hispanically owned or otherwise, pay taxes at the highest marginal rate." 3/19/01

"We need to change that attitude about how prolific we can be with the people's money" - 3/16/01

"There are some monuments where the land is so widespread, they just encompass as much as possible. And the integral part of the - the precious part, so to speak, I guess all land is precious - but the part that the people uniformly would not want to spoil, will not be despoiled. But there are parts of the monument lands where we can explore without affecting the overall environment." - 3/13/01

"That's uncredibly unfair"

"I do think we need for a troop to be able to house his family." - 3/12/01

"I think there is some methodology in my travels." - 3/5/01

"A sure way to make sure this economy gets drug down is to overspend". - 3/1/01

"Of all states that understands local control of schools, Iowa is such a state." - 2/28/01

"Those of us who spent time in the agricultural sector and in the heartland, we understand how unfair the death penalty is." - 2/28/01

"My pan plays down an unprecedented amount of our national debt." - 2/27/01

"Let the American people spend their OWN money to meet their OWN needs." - 2/27/01

"I'm concerned about the amount of acreage in cultivation for the growth of cocoa leaves" (defined: We must halt the trafficking in chocolate! Just say no to cocoa! Leads to devil's food cake!) - 2/23/01

"I have said that the sanction regime is like Swiss cheese—that meant that they weren't very effective." - 2/21/01

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass the literary test" - 2/21/01

"There's no such thing as legacies. At least, there is a legacy, but I'll never see it." - 1/31/01

"I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well." - 1/29/01

"My pro-life position is I believe there's life. It's not necessarily based in religion. I think there's a life there, therefore the notion of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness." -1/23/01

"I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure." - 1/18/01

"Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment." - 1/14/01

"The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants." - 1/14/01

"If he's—the inference is that somehow he thinks slavery is a—is a noble institution I would—I would strongly reject that assumption—that John Ashcroft is a open-minded, inclusive person." - 1/14/01

"She's just trying to make sure Anthony gets a good meal—Antonio."—On Laura Bush inviting Justice Antonin Scalia to dinner at the White House. - 1/14/01

"I am mindful of the difference between the executive branch and the legislative branch. I assured all four of these leaders that I know the difference, and that difference is they pass the laws and I execute them." - 12/18/00

"They misunderestimated me." - 11/6/00

"They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." - 11/2/00

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." - 10/18/00

"I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial profiling, which is illiterate children." - 10/11/00

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." - 9/29/00

"I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy." - 9/27/00

"The woman who knew that I had dyslexia--I never interviewed her." - 9/15/00

"I don't need to be subliminabable" - 9/12/00

"We cannot let terriers and rogue nations hold this nation hostile" - 9/9/00

"I do know I'm ready for the job. And, if not, that's just the way it goes." - 8/21/00

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" - 1/11/00

"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun."

"If most of the breaks go to wealthy people it's because most of the people who pay taxes are wealthy."

"I understand small business growth. I was one."

[jdl22]

You missed my three favorites though two are similar.

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."

Sure overseas could mean over the sea but nobody I know would say that Mexico and Venezuela are not considered overseas.

In case you doubt this there is this:
"... I've been talking to Vicente Fox, the new president of Mexico... I know him... to have gas and oil sent to U.S.... so we'll not depend on foreign oil..."
-- the first Presidential debate, 10/03/2000

Sure.

Moving from the subject of oil to race relations:

"do you have blacks too?"

He asked this to the president of Brasil the country with the most black people outside of Africa. This demonstrates not only his way with words but also his ignorance of basic world history and events. Furthermore why is this question relevant?

[John Cole]

Darin!