If our definition is no more suiciders, you’ve just basically said to the suiciders, go ahead

Bush gave a speech and q&a at Tippecanoe High School in Tipp City, Ohio. It was a long speech, and photographers got a little fascinated by one burly Secret Service agent with no neck.


He said, “You know, it’s a -- there is -- the President spends time at disasters.” Trying to look innocent.

Okay, okay, he was actually talking about Virginia Tech, that disaster. But a disaster in which Bush finds a silver lining: “And the amazing thing is, though, when you go down to a scene like Virginia Tech, you can’t help but be buoyed by the spirit that out of the tragedy comes a certain sense of resolve.” So that’s okay, then.


Bush does stick with his little phrases with a steely persistence long after they’ve become a laughing stock. “My job is a job to make decisions. I’m a decision -- if the job description were, what do you do -- it’s decision-maker.” And you know what “deeply affected” his decision-making? Would you believe 9/11? “I realized that there is an enemy of the United States that is active and is lethal.” What was your first clue?

“I also know full well that it’s important for us if we’re facing an ideology, if we’re facing ideologues, if we’re confronting people who believe something, that we have got to defeat their belief system with a better belief system. Forms of government matter, in my opinion.” And ours is a reverse meritocracy.

“And now we’re involved in -- I call it a global war against terror. You can’t call it a global war against extremists, a global war against radicals, a global war against people who want to hurt America; you can call it whatever you want, but it is a global effort.” I think we know what I want to call it, but who, one wonders, prefers to call it a global war against people who want to hurt America (GWAPWWTHA)?


In fact, Bush was unusually permissive about vocabulary today: “The question was, do we increase our -- I call it, reinforce, you can call it, surge, there’s all kind of words for it...”

On Iraq: “It’s easy to forget the elections because of all the violence.” How true. “People often ask me, what are we seeing on TV? What’s happening with the violence? Here’s my best analysis: One, the spectaculars you see are al Qaeda inspired. They claim credit for a lot of the big bombings.” Really, that actually is his best analysis. Also: spectaculars? But we should all just ignore the violence and maybe it will go away: “If the definition of success in Iraq or anywhere is no suicide bombers, we’ll never be successful. ... Think about that: if our definition is no more suiciders, you’ve just basically said to the suiciders, go ahead.”


Reading the transcript, I was actually impressed that Bush used “whom” correctly in a sentence. This, however, was the next sentence: “And yet they -- and yet, the enemy -- and the enemy -- when I say, enemy, these are enemies of free societies, primarily al Qaeda inspired -- blew up the great religious shrine in ‘06, a year ago -- all aiming to create a sense of sectarian violence, all aiming to exacerbate the religious tensions that sometimes were exacerbated under Saddam Hussein, all aiming at preventing this young democracy from succeeding. And they succeeded.” “All aiming” or “all aimed,” by the way, is his new favorite phrase.

“Interesting” made something of a come-back: “It’s interesting here in Tipp City, the first thing that happened was a moment of silence”. “It’s an interesting war, isn’t it, where asymmetrical warfare is... not only, obviously, kills a lot of innocent people, like which happened yesterday in Iraq, but also helps define whether or not we’re successful.” “Isn’t it interesting, when you really take a step back and think about what I just said, that al Qaeda is making serious moves in Iraq, as is surrogates for Iran.” “Isn’t it interesting that it’s the democracies of the Middle East that are having the most problem with the extremists? I think it is.” “It’s an interesting force posture to be in.”

COMMITMENT ISSUES: “[If we withdraw from Iraq] It would confirm their sense that the United States is incapable of long-term commitments, incapable of -- it would confirm their commitment that they think we’re soft, let me put it to you that way. That’s what they think. I didn’t necessarily mean that the United States has to kind of muscle up for the sake of muscling up. That’s not what I’m trying to say. But I do believe it is risky to have an enemy that has attacked us before to not take the United States seriously for the long run.”

SENTENCES I’M QUOTING OUT OF CONTEXT, JUST BECAUSE: “I would call these times consequential times.” Or possibly Susan. “If you’ve got a chicken factory, a chicken-plucking factory, or whatever you call them, you know what I’m talking about.” “The reason I brought up the rug was to not only kind of break the ice, but also to talk about strategic thought.”

On Virginia Tech: “One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody, or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behavior, to do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look”. Well, there’s this dude, in like a suit, with like a microphone, at Tippecanoe High School, and he’s like talking really funny...

Asked the difference between Iraq and Vietnam, he said that Iraq voted for a constitution and that there was a North Vietnam and a South Vietnam. But if we leave Iraq, there will be something like the Khmer Rouge.

IN OTHER WORDS ROUND-UP: On the Iraq spending bill: “I submitted what the Pentagon thinks it needs. In other words, the process works where I ask the Pentagon, how much do you need? What do you need to do the job?” On immigration: “it’s in the interest of the country that people who are here be assimilated in a way that -- with our traditions and history. In other words, those who eventually become citizens be assimilated. In other words, one of the great things about America is we’ve been able to assimilate people from different backgrounds and different countries.” Yes, that was one of his death-defying Double In Other Words. Here’s another: “In other words, if what happens overseas matters to the United States, therefore, the best way to protect us is to deal with threats overseas. In other words, we just can’t let a threat idle”. On Medicare: “We gave seniors choices. In other words, we created more of a marketplace.” On immigration again: In other words, the law that we have in place has created an entire underground system of smugglers, inn keepers, and document forgers. And that’s not the American way, by the way.” Un-American innkeepers. On – oh who cares what it’s on: “In other words, one of my concerns is that there is a gap.” In less than an hour and a half, there were 18 in other wordses. Er, in other words’s. In other wordsi. In other wordsae. Or, as the kids would pluralize it, in other wordz.

A dropped microphone provided Bush and the local chamber of commerce president to enact the slapstick comedy stylings of Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.