Many folks give President George W. Bush (a.k.a. Dubya) grief for mangling
the English language. Truth is, Dubya comes by the trait honestly. His father,
President George H.W. Bush (a.k.a. Poppy), was also a notorious misspeaker.
Below are a series of quotations from Poppy, Dubya, and (just to make things
interesting) former Vice President Dan Quayle. Can you guess who said what?
___ 1. “Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going
to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand
on you and I am now filibustering.”
___ 2. “When I’m talking about myself, and when he’s talking about myself,
all of us are talking about me.”
___ 3. “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”
___ 4. “I hope I stand for antibigotry, anti-Semitism, antiracism. This is
what drives me.”
___ 5. “It’s no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another.”
___ 6. “When I need a little advice about Saddam Hussein, I turn to country
music.”
___ 7. “High-tech is potent, precise, and, in the end, unbeatable. The truth
is, it reminds a lot of people of the way I pitch horseshoes. Would you believe
some of the people? Would you believe our dog? Look, I want to give the high-five
symbol to high-tech.”
___ 8. “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”
___ 9. “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean
in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in
this century.”
___ 10. “I’ve got a record, a record that is conservative and a record that
is compassionated.”
___ 11. “That gets into quota, go into numerical, set numbers for doctors
or for . . . it could go into all kinds of things.”
___ 12. “Then you wake up at the high-school level and find out that the illiteracy
level of our children are appalling.”
___ 13. “It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities
in our air and water that are doing it.
___ 14. “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier —
so long as I’m the dictator.”
___ 15. “They want the federal government controlling Social Security like
it’s some kind of federal program.”
___ 16. “God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as
a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear.”
___ 17. “Mars is essentially in the same orbit . . . Mars is somewhat the
same distance from the sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where
there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there
is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”
___ 18. “The future will be better tomorrow.”
___ 19. “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”
___ 20. “Had we gone into Baghdad — we could have done it, you guys could
have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours — and then what? Which sergeant,
which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an
urban guerrilla war to find the most secure dictator in the world? Whose life
would be on my hands as the commander in chief because I, unilaterally, went
beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we’re
going to show our macho? We’re going into Baghdad. We’re going to be an occupying
power — America in an Arab land — with no allies at our side. It would have
been disastrous.”
Bonus round: Who said, “Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things”?
Answers:
1. Poppy,
2. Dubya,
3. Dubya,
4. Poppy,
5. Poppy,
6. Poppy,
7. Poppy,
8. Dubya,
9. Quayle,
10. Dubya,
11. Poppy,
12. Dubya,
13. Quayle,
14. Dubya,
15. Dubya,
16. Dubya,
17. Quayle,
18. Quayle,
19. Dubya,
20. Poppy. Bonus: Quayle
Scoring:
15-21: You’re a Bush Hog!
10-14: You won’t be misunderestimated!
5-9: You can’t be fooled again.
0-4: So you’re not smart. You can always run for president.
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2004.
