Quotes of the Morning: The Bush Boom

“The president didn't look all that relieved or happy, however. His eyes were puffy from lack of sleep (he had been awakened all through the night with bulletins), and he seemed cranky and fidgety. A group of reporters and photographers had been summoned by White House handlers to capture a photo op of the commander in chief at his post. Bush stared at them balefully. He rocked back and forth in his chair, furiously at times, asked no questions and took no notes. It almost seemed as though he resented having to strike a pose for the press.”
-Newsweek, October 3, 2005 issue

“Uh oh.. Fearless Leader isn’t getting his sleep. I wonder what’s keeping him up?”
-Skippy

“Bitter disagreements over global economic policy broke out into the open yesterday as the French Finance Minister claimed that Alan Greenspan had admitted America had ‘lost control’ of its budget while China warned the US to drop demands for radical economic policy changes.
In an extraordinary revelation after a meeting between Thierry Breton and Mr Greenspan, M. Breton told reporters: ‘We have lost control,' that was his [Mr Greenspan's] expression.
‘The US has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorised without any control [from Congress],’ M. Breton said.
‘We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today. The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market ... is clearly the American deficit.’"
-Independent (UK), September 26, 2005

“The economy? Heck, he hasn’t actually been concerned with that in years. It must be something else.”
-Skippy

“That’s not a good way to determine how good or bad things are going – by (counting) how many things are exploding.”
-Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, September 19, 2005

“Iraq? I thought that things exploding was a good sign of how desperate the insurgency is. It must be something else.”
-Skippy

“The president's recent schedule of nonstop disaster-scene photo-ops is reminiscent of the principal of a failing school who believes he's doing a great job because he makes it a point to drop in on every class play and teacher retirement party. And if there ever was an exhibit of the misguided conviction that for some people very little is good enough, it's the current administration spin that the proposed Iraqi constitution is fine because the founding fathers didn't give women equal rights either.”
-New York Times, September 25, 2005

“The Press? It must be the press. The press is going, for the first time in five years, on the offense. It has to be the press. The puffy eyes and irritability. The press.”
-Skippy

“Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.
Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.
Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.
His worried wife yelled at him: ‘Stop, George.’
Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against ‘falling off the wagon’ and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add.
‘When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot,’ said one insider. ‘He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: ‘Stop George!’’
'Laura gave him an ultimatum before, 'It's Jim Beam or me.' She doesn't want to replay that nightmare — especially now when it's such tough going for her husband.’
Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.
A Washington source said: ‘The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him — but the word is his drinking has been going on for a while in the capital. He's been in a pressure cooker for months.’”
-The National Enquirer, September 21, 2005

“Hey, it’s the Enquirer. No one believes the Enquirer.”
-Skippy