Quotes of the Morning: Gone Fishing

“A few days ago a German newspaper asked Dubya what his best moment was since taking office. It was a difficult question, but not a new one. When asked the same question Carter said the Camp David Accord and Clinton said dealing with the Kosovo crisis. Dubya took a slightly different view of things.”
-Skippy

“President Bush told a German newspaper his best moment in more than five years in office was catching a big perch in his own lake.
‘You know, I've experienced many great moments and it's hard to name the best,’ Bush told weekly Bild am Sonntag when asked about his high point since becoming president in January 2001.
‘I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound perch in my lake,’ he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.”
-Reuters, May 8, 2006

“Rallying the nation after 9/11? Overthrowing the oppressive Taliban regime? Dealing with Saddam? Reading ‘My Pet Goat’? No, Dubya’s happiest moment happened while ignoring his job. Being President is hard work.
It turns out that the perch was a simple mistranslation. Apparently perch and bass are spelled the same in German. Good thing too… A 7.5 pound perch would have beaten the world record by about three pounds. Plus, we all know that Bush is a bass-man.”
-Skippy

“President Bush skipped a scheduled morning of fishing Saturday to deal with the Iraq crisis, but his catch the day before was something to brag about.
‘He took the biggest one of the day,’ a bass nearly four pounds, said Roland Martin, host of the Outdoor Life Network program, ‘Fishing with Roland Martin.’
The president and Martin released several big fish they caught Friday but kept the smaller ones for eating.
[…]
At about 5:30 p.m., Bush looked at his watch and said he had time to ‘make a couple casts, so we jumped into the boat real quick.’
Iraq didn't come up. ‘He didn't really talk about politics at all,’ Martin said. "He was just relieved to have a minute to fish.’
The TV host said Bush is ‘a very accomplished fisherman. He handled the tackle really well and caught three fish,’ Martin said. ‘He complains he doesn't fish there enough; so he misses that a lot.’
They floated on the pond for about 1½ hours. White House aides told Martin that ‘things were kind of calmed down’ in Iraq and that prospects were good for another session Saturday.
[…]
Martin believed that events in Iraq had forced Bush to cancel the Saturday shoot. ‘He alluded to it. He said, 'I've been busy, all these crises,'’ Martin recalled. Militants on Saturday threatened to kill and mutilate Thomas Hamill, an American civilian captured in an ambush of a convoy west of Baghdad.”
-Associated Press, April 10, 2004

“Yep. The President’s best times are those quiet hours that he can go fishing and not think about things like this that are happening at the time…”
-Skippy

“Medical officials in Fallujah said the number of Iraqis killed there since Tuesday had reached 450, with 1,000 wounded, news services reported.
[…]
Two American soldiers were killed in action in Iraq Friday. A roadside bomb and small arms fire killed a soldier with the 1st Cavalry Division at Camp Cooke, an Army base north of Baghdad, at 8:30 a.m.”
-Washington Post, April 10, 2004

“Take care of the Iraq issue? Sorry… Dubya’s gone fishing.”
-Skippy