Quotes of the Morning: Not Political

“Calling resistance against terrorism the ‘defining struggle of the 21st century,’ President Bush declared Tuesday that he would not let Americans’ frustration with the war deter him from finishing the job in Iraq.
[…]
Bush said he could ‘understand the frustrations of our citizens.’ But ‘if we retreat for the sake of popularity, is that the smart thing to do? My answer is absolutely not,’ he said. ‘It’d be a huge mistake to give the battlefield to these extremists.
‘We retreat, they follow us,’ he added. ‘And I see this clearly as day.’”
-MSNBC and NBC News, August 29, 2006

“Couldn’t we just not allow them to come in? I mean, don’t we have passports, visas, etc, meant to keep people that want to hurt us from getting in? If not, shouldn’t we, you know, think about getting stuff like that?”
-Skippy

“’These terrorists have made it clear they want us to leave Iraq prematurely, and why is it?’ he asked. ‘Because they want a safe haven. They’d love to get ahold of oil. They have territorial ambitions. ...
‘I personally do not believe Saddam Hussein picked up the phone and said to al-Qaida, ‘Attack America.’ [But] he was on our state-sponsor-of-terrorists list, and he was paying families of suiciders. He also, by the way, had weapons of mass destruction at one time and had the capacity to make them. That’s a dangerous mix.’”
-MSNBC and NBC News, August 29, 2006

“They wanted a safe haven. We built one for them in a place unrelated to the 9/11 attacks. Haven’t we appeased the terrorists enough? Do we need to continue their recruiting drive for them?”
-Skippy

"’A lot of the people who say we need to withdraw from Iraq say we'll be safer, and I don't think that's accurate,’ said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, a key architect of the party's strategy heading into the fall congressional campaign. Mehlman noted that Osama bin Laden and other Islamic radicals have said they want to drive Americans out of Iraq and use it as a base. ‘We ought to not ignore when they say they're going to do that.’"
-Washington Post, August 30, 2006

“True.. true.. And I guess we should have been paying attention when this was said..”
-Skippy

“Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US”
-Presidential Daily Briefing, August 6, 2001

“Yet apparently the Administration has chosen to pay attention to the wrong one. Go figure.”
-Skippy

“While no Democrat has the powerful platform that the White House affords Bush and Cheney, the complaints about the mischaracterizing of positions on the war flow in both directions. Many Democrats accuse the president of advocating ‘stay the course’ in Iraq, but the White House rejects the phrase and regularly emphasizes that it is adapting tactics to changing circumstances, such as moving more U.S. troops into Baghdad recently after a previous security strategy appeared to fail.”
-Washington Post, August 30, 2006

“Yes, the Democrats are being completely unfair to the White House’s position.”
-Skippy

“We’re not going to lose in Iraq. As a matter of fact, we will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, July 11, 2006

“I think the thing you do, number one is, you bring to justice those who are guilty of breaking laws. And certainly this is not a government that condones rape, murder, or the abuse of human rights. The second thing you do is you stay the course..”
-White House Spokesman Tony Snow, July 10, 2006

“We’re for staying the course in Iraq and the war on terror.”
-Senator Bill Frist, July 27, 2006

“They said that, but obviously that isn’t what they meant. Just another of the liberal terrorist-sympathizing media and the Democrats siding with the forces that want to kill you and your little dog too.”
-Skippy

“Bush's speech to the American Legion this morning will launch his third intensive campaign in the past year to address public anxiety over the war. Aides said he will tackle the perception that the world is in chaos and tie together the conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and elsewhere into the common ideological thread of fighting ‘Islamic fascism.’
The effort will continue with other speeches in Washington and around the country, followed by a whirlwind tour of the Sept. 11 attack sites and a Sept. 19 address to the U.N. General Assembly. During a campaign stop in Arkansas yesterday, Bush denied that the efforts are connected to the election campaign.
‘They're not political speeches,’ he said. ‘They're speeches about the future of this country, and they're speeches to make it clear that if we retreat before the job is done, this nation would become even more in jeopardy. These are important times, and I seriously hope people wouldn't politicize these issues that I'm going to talk about.’"
-Washington Post, August 30, 2006

“Yes. Fearless Leader is going to talk about the future of the country. Nothing political about it. How dare they accuse him of that!”
-Skippy

"’Over the next 69 days,’ [Republican National Committee Chairman Ken] Mehlman said, ‘there will be an important discussion in America over what it takes to make America safe’"
-Washington Post, August 30, 2006

“Yep. Nothing political about it. The fact that it comes in the lead-up to the mid-term elections is mere coincidence. Nothing to see here. Move on.”
-Skippy