Is this republicans idea of intelligence and great leadership?

Question

"There are jobs Americans aren't doing. ... If you've got a chicken factory, a chicken-plucking factory, or whatever you call them, you know what I'm talking about." --George W. Bush

"I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times." --George W. Bush

"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." --George W. Bush

"I said to her, make sure the rug says 'optimistic person comes to work.'" --George W. Bush, on his instructions to First Lady Laura Bush in choosing a rug for the Oval Office

"That's why we are inconveniencing air traffickers, to make sure nobody is carrying weapons on airplanes." --George W. Bush
"Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." --George W. Bush

AMAZING!!!! Cons defend this! There are 100s just like these. Every time he speaks publicly off script, there are a dozen additions to the list.

Is there a similar Clinton list? Bush Sr? Reagan? NO!!!

Answer 1

Wow! Are you a writer for the Daily Show with John Stewart? Because you're great at picking out quotes and taking them out of context.

You do realize that you can pick apart other people's statement's and do the same thing.

Edit: If I had the time and lack of a life, I could come up with a list for others. Speech's really have no bearing on whether or not a person is intelligent. Public speaking is the biggest social fear of americans. And I'm sure all of us have known smart people who got their words mixed up and were terrible at public speaking. Seeing a president who makes the same mistakes as the average person shows us that he's not just a smooth actor like most other politicians. I'm surprised that people get so down on him for this. You do realize that con-men can deliver speeches perfectly because they are master deceivers. Would rather have one of those in office?

Edit2: Simple google search for Clinton quotes:
Quotes by the Clintons
Part 1: self contradictory statements
Medicare:
We propose to let (medicare) go up at 2 times the rate of inflation...when you here all this business about cuts, let me caution you that that is not what is going on" - Bill Clinton proposal on Medicare
"They are cutting medicare" - Bill Clinton on the very same proposal when voted on by Republicans
"It is a $270 billion cut in medicare" - Bill Clinton on the very same proposal when voted on by Republicans
Taxes:
"I will tell you this: I will not raise taxes on the middle-class to pay for these programs." - Bill Clinton
"It might suprise you to know I think I raised them too much, too" - Bill Clinton
A short time later: "I take full responsability...for what we did. It was the right thing to do." - Bill Clinton
"I have no intention of raising taxes" - Bill Clinton
Welfare:
"And I have a plan to do even better, to end welfare as we know it" - Bill Clinton (who vetoed the welfare reform bill passed by congress and later signed it taking credit for it)
Campaign Finance Reform:
"I am committed to curbing the influence of money in our political system." - Bill Clinton
Oddly enough it was Clinton selling the Lincoln Bedroom to big money donors
The Scandals
"I did not have sexual realtions with that woman, Miss Lewinsky!" - Bill Clinton
"Indeed I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong" - Bill Clinton
Lying
"If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people he should resign." - Bill Clinton running for US Representative in 1974
"I misled people" - Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky address (Translation: I lied to the American people)
"I issued a number of denials to people I thought needed to hear them" - Bill Clinton, Grand Jury Testimony (Translation: I wanted to cover it up so I lied to you- even under oath)
"I am trying to be honest with you and it hurts me. Now..." - Bill Clinton's Grand Jury Testimony (We know all too well)

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Part 2: What other Liberals say about Clinton

"Clinton likes cigars" - Fidel Castro, 1996


"Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?"- Sen. Bob Kerry, D-Nebraska

"This act will leave a moral blot on his presidency" - Marion Wright Edelman on Clinton signing the welfare reform bill.
Of course it is not the scandals, nor the lies, nor the cover-ups that leave the blot. (Sources: 'The Limbaugh Letter' and 'The Boston Globe')

"Clinton likes cigars" - Fidel Castro ca. 1996. (note: this was a serious quote from long before today's scandal)

"What does he stand for?" - James Carville

"The President's very shrewd" - Sam Donaldson

"a breach of trust" - George Stephanopolous on the Lewinsky address

"He's immune to shame" - Jesse Jackson
"It was not just inappropriate behavior" - Sen. Bob Kerry, D-Nebraska on the Lewinsky affair

"It (Lewinskygate) has...compromised his moral authority" - Sen. Joseph Lieberman D- Connecticut

"All of us knew he was a snake when we voted for him" - Patricia Ireland, President of the National Organization of Women



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Part 3: Stupid Quotes by Clinton

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans" - Bill Clinton (this is REAL scary)

"You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say." - Bill Clinton (and again)

"I'm sure I spent more time in Texas than anybody else who had run for President recently." - Bill Clinton
Tell that to Texas residents George Bush and Ross Perot

"When I was a younger man and had a life, I owned an El Camino pickup in the '70s. It was a real sort of Southern deal. I had Astroturf in the back." - Bill Clinton

"When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale." - Bill Clinton

"The last time I checked, the Constitution said, 'of the people, by the people and for the people.' That's what the Declaration of Independence says." - Bill Clinton (Note that the statement quoted was from the Gettysburg Address)

"I mean you've got a conservative and right-winged press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum." - Hillary Clinton on C-Span
Sure Hillary, that's it. That is also why almost all of the press voted for your husband

"I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes." - Bill Clinton
What about the welfare bill that was vetoed at first then signed?

I plan to "end the unlimited `soft' money contributions that are funneled through national, state, and local parties to presidential candidates." - Bill Clinton
What about through the Chinese government or through a Buddhist temple?

"Almost makes you want to go to jail out here, doesn't it?" - Bill Clinton when visiting a Spanish fortress/former prison
This quote could apply to other things namely Whitewater (Quoted on The Rush Limbaugh Show)

"We will reduce the White House staff by 25 percent" - Bill Clinton
I guess he intended to merely replace this 25% later with friends and cousins

"We're not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved." - Bill Clinton commenting on Saddam Hussein's so called palaces.
Not at all, that only applies to the White House

"[They let] friendship with the leaders in China obscure our devotion to freedom and democracy when those kids set up in Tiananmen Square, and I think it was wrong." - Bill Clinton criticizing America's past stances toward China

And theres more: http://members.tripod.com/~GOPcapitalist/stupidquotes.html

Edit3: Wait you want Bush Sr. Quotes? go here: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyquotes/a/georgehwbushism.htm

Do I really need to find Reagan quotes too for you? No I think you can handle googling it.

Answer 2

There should be some sort of intelligence or aptitude test candidates would be required to pass before running for high office. People who can't even spell or pronounce "diplomacy" or "constitutionality" more than likely don't know what those words mean and shouldn't be in the White House. Bush can't even say "nuclear" without mispronouncing it "nucular".

Answer 3

The closest is former V.P. (Under GHW Bush) J. Danforth Quayle. He is the closest but still far removed from Dubya.

Answer 4

scary ain't it. But my favorite one is when he said this at the 2001 Washington TV/Radio Correspondents Dinners
"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"

Recent ones ( in the past 8 months)
"And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."

"Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die." -HUH!?!

"The only way we can win is to leave before the job is done."

Then we wonder why the rest of the world thinks this country is run by a bunch of idiots and our rating in terms of education keeps falling.

Answer 5

I guess the Pres has issues with mis-stating his information from time to time. Hey, it's a high-pressure role, so it's bound to happen.

Answer 6

Laugh at the syntax all you like.

Most of those statements are admirable, if you are willing to listen.

Answer 7

yes and they always ask
'is our chidlren learning?'

Answer 8

He babbles.

Answer 9

Not a list on Gore and Clinton! Hmmm. This is interesting. I won't even mention that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet.

Are you sure your from Earth?

At an event in Las Vegas on Monday, 09/18/00, Gore declared potential breast cancer victims faced "a long waiting line before they could get a biopsy or, uh, or a uh, another kind of, what am I looking for, a sonogram or...." People in the crowd shouted "mammogram."
(Source: Fox News 09/18/00; MSNBC 09/21/00 - The News with Brian Williams)

"When my sister and I were growing up," Mr. Gore told a small audience made up mostly of women, "there was never any doubt in our minds that men and women were equal, if not more so."
(Source: NY Times, 08/12/00)
Equal - if not more so? More so what? More "equal"? Who is more so? If two things are equal, what is the "more so" for?


One thousand billion million trillion...
Oct. 25 2000 JACKSON, Tenn. (Reuters) — Criticizing Bush's Social Security privatization plan at a rally in Tennessee, Gore said, "He is proposing to privatize a big part of Social Security and he's proposing to take $1 trillion, a million billion dollars out of the Social Security trust fund and give it as a tax incentive to young workers."
A trillion is one thousand billion, not a million billion.
(Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/wires/1025/p_rt_1025_41.sml

On July 16, 2000 during a "Meet the Press" interview, Gore was asked if he would be in favor of postponing the execution of a pregnant woman. His hesitant response was "I'd have to think about it".
Apparently not prepared for this curve ball of a question, Gore must have been so conscientious about upsetting his pro-choice constituency that he couldn't even give the answer that was obvious to every member of the House which in uncharacteristically unanimous fashion passed legislation shortly after this interview to prohibit such a practice.

In his 2000 convention acceptance speech, Gore said the Bush tax cut would save the average family 62 cents a week ("enough for a diet coke"). He later clarified it and said 62 cents a day per family... which is still wrong. Even at 62 cents a day, that's only a little over $226 a year. Under the Bush tax plan, the average family would save $1500 -- $4.20 a day, which is almost $29 dollars a week.

At a press conference July 21, 1999, Bill Clinton stated:
"John Kennedy had actually not been back to the White House since his father was killed, until I had became president - and first he was on an advisory committee that made a report to me, and he came back to the Oval Office where he saw the desk that he took the famous picture in - you know, coming through the gate, for the first time since he was a little boy."

In an interview with Chris Matthews February 5, 1996 when asked about the time President Nixon hosted a dinner party in 1971, John F. Kennedy, Jr. described it in these words:

"He had invited my mother to the White House privately, and she accepted and brought all of us, Caroline and me, back. He was very warm and he was a wonderful host and we saw the rooms where we had lived. My sister (I was sort of a hyperactive child) and my sister had a bet with me that either I would spill my milk or my shirttail would be untucked because that used to happen with great frequency. So I had gotten through most of the dinner and shirttail was in and milk was upright and I think we were at dessert. Something caught my attention and the milk went over - right over his lap and he just was very - you know - just didn't blink and just kind of wiped it up - and I lost the bet ... it was a memorable evening."

So which person told the truth - and which person "embellished" to bolster his own image! The story of the Nixon party was written by Chris Matthews in a book which the President displays in his bookcase.

Mr. Clinton made a "joke" during a White House Press meeting during the weekend of May 1, 1999. He assured the group that although Al Gore attended the Kentucky Derby, he did not sire the winning horse. Everyone laughed (??) This is the president of the United States, making jokes about the VP having sex with a horse?
Source: AP wire. May 2, 1999

Clinton: "I can spend your money better than you can."
In a post-State of the Union speech in Buffalo, NY on January 20, 1999, Bill Clinton was asked why not a tax cut if we have a surplus. Clinton's response:
"We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right... But ... if you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen. In 2013 -- that's just 14 years away -- taxes people pay on their payroll for Social Security will no longer cover the monthly checks... I want every parent here to look at the young people here, and ask yourself, 'Do you really want to run the risk of squandering this surplus?' "
Source: Washington Times, January 21, 1999

"[I]t depends on how you define "alone" ... there were a lot of times when we were alone, but I never really thought we were."

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is"
- excerpts from Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony

"You can't say you love your country and hate your government." - Bill Clinton, 1995 (After the OKC bombing)

"A lot of wonderful people love their country and hate the military." - Bill Clinton, 1969 (Letter to the National Guard)

Which is it?

"The other thing we have to do is to take seriously the role in this problem of...older men who prey on underage women...There are consequences to decisions and...one way or the other, people always wind up being held accountable." Bill Clinton, June 13, 1996, in a speech endorsing a national effort against teen pregnancy.
Unless the person is an Intern, of course...

"And so, it is important that we are able to forgive those we believe have wronged us even as we ask for forgiveness from people we have wronged. And I heard that first -- first in the civil rights movement. Love thy neighbor as thyself."

Bill Clinton went to a parochial school for two years. His mother took him to Sunday schools in both Hope and Hot Springs. By the time he was eight, he would get up early on Sunday get himself washed and dressed, and walk to the Park Place Baptist Church four blocks from his home, carrying a Bible given to him by his family. He was baptized by immersion at an early age after professing his faith.

Is it possible that the Park Place Baptist Church, the Sunday Schools, and the Catholic parochial schools never mentioned Matthew 22:34-40 - the verses with the two great commandments of Christianity: the greatest and first commandment to love God; and the second one, which is "to love thy neighbor as thyself"?


The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand." -- Gov. Bill Clinton, Georgetown University, December 12, 1991.

How ironic that President Clinton would say this! I guess he thinks it's O.K. for him to coddle China if they fund his political campaign!
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"I can tell you that the decisions we made, we made because we thought they were in the interests of the American people,"--Bill Clinton, on being asked why he signed waivers, against the Pentagon's protest, to sell Loral missile guidance systems technology to Communist China, enabling China for the first time to launch nuclear weapons.
(May 18, 1998 edition of the Washington Times, front page)
Oh. Risking National security is in our best interest.

The president was giving a speech in Berlin in May, 1998, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Airlift, which kept the city afloat in 1948-49 when Stalin attempted to starve it into submission. Clinton chose to give special recognition to then-Lt. Gail Halvorsen of Provo, Utah, who had dropped packages of candy for Berlin's children from his aircraft as he landed with supplies at Templehoff Airport.
"She is here with us today," the president declared, speaking of Halvorsen. "I'd like to ask her to stand."

Gail Halvorsen then stood up - Mr. Gail Halvorsen, a 77-year old grandfather.

"Thank you, Sir, " said Clinton.

Granted, Gail is also a woman's name - but wouldn't one think that our President would check this prior to making the announcement?
(source for quote: The New York Post, May 15, 1998)

"And the deficit has come down for four years in a row for the first time since before the Civl War. I meant to say since before World War II. But maybe it should be since before the Civil War."

The last time was actually 1944-1947 followed by a year of surplus increase.
(Historical Statistics, Bicentennial Edition by the Dept of Commerce)