Bush says we’ve never been ‘stay the course’

October 23, 2006

It’s not altogether reassuring that the president frequently reminds me of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Told he’s just lost an arm in battle, the [tag]Black Knight[/tag] is incredulous. After losing another, King Arthur says, “You’ve got no arms left.” The Black Knight responds, “Yes I have.” Arthur looks at the bloody appendages on the ground, to which the Black Knight explains, “It’s just a flesh wound.”

I kept thinking about that scene yesterday when ABC News’ George [tag]Stephanopoulos[/tag] noted to [tag]Bush[/tag] that former Secretary of State James Baker suggested that he’s looking for an Iraq policy that’s somewhere between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”

The president responded, “Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been ‘[tag]stay the course[/tag],’ George.”

No? Never? Nico at ThinkProgress, playing the role of King Arthur, pointed to the appendages on the ground.

BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]

BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]

BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]

Oops.

Of course, Bush said “we” have never been about staying the course, suggesting somehow that his entire team has avoided the approach. Unfortunately for the White House, Google exists, and there’s ample evidence that the entire Bush gang has embraced “stay the course” as a policy priority, including White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and the president’s allies on the Hill.

I can appreciate the fact that “stay the course” no longer polls well, and I don’t blame the president for wanting to distance himself from what was once his principal talking point, but for Bush to say that he’s “never” embraced such a policy shows the kind of detachment from reality that worries me most about the president. If he said, “I know I’ve used ‘stay the course’ as a policy shorthand, I’m afraid it’s never reflected my full thinking on the issue. Because it gives the public the wrong idea, I now prefer to describe my policy as…” it would at least be partially coherent.

But Bush instead prefers the Black Knight approach. After using “stay the course” repeatedly for years, the president effectively turns around and says, “Who me? Stay the course? You must be thinking about someone else.” Indeed, watching him make the comments, he appears to actually believe them, suggesting he’s deluded himself into embracing the talking points Karl Rove hands so thoroughly, it doesn’t much matter what the truth is anymore.

Moreover, this seems to be a trend. Iraq wasn’t an imminent threat? Sure it was. No weapons of mass destruction? Wrong, we found them. The Social Security privatization scheme would weaken the system? No, it wouldn’t. There’s overwhelming evidence pointing to global warming? No, there isn’t.

What actually happens doesn’t seem to matter; Bush believes what he wants to believe.

It must make the president’s daily life absolutely delightful. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.

“Unfortunately for the White House, Google exists”

You know, I would have thought that phrase summed up the doom of the Republican Party and the Bush Crime Family, at least in terms of introducing unbridled arrogance into their governing style.

Unfortunately, just as Google came along, the American public seems to have lost its mind entirely (or turned to religion, which amounts to the same thing).

  • The key term of all this mess lies in the first paragraph after the jump – “Bush gang.” George and his loyal friends are nothing more than democracy’s muggers, thuggers and theives. Profiteers, liars, manipulators, ill-faithed charlatans the lot of them. It is important to our democracy, to our children and to ourselves to vote for Congressional change this November 7th. Let not one Republican be re-elected this election cycle! -Kevo

  • We’ve long known that the chimp was a lying sociopath, so these comments don’t particularly surprise me. The more important diysfunction is the fact that the interviewers who are fed this drivel never bother to point out the obvious. Even assuming Stephanopoulos didn’t have these quotes at his fingertips, he should have said SOMETHING. More egregiously, ALL coverage of this interview ought to point out this pathetic and obvious lie. If it had been Clinton or Gore, they would have been all over it.

    Having someone like Bush in a leadership position is horrific, but it’s not the disease, it’s a symptom. Stephanopoulos’ silence in the face of this crap is the disease. Without an entire press corps of enablers, we’d never have had to deal with Bush.

    I’ll be happy to eat crow if the damn MSM does its job for once and points out the boy king’s lies. But I’m guessing it’ll just be another of these things you only see on liberal blogs.

  • ***It must make the president’s daily life absolutely delightful. Ignorance, after all, is bliss.***

    Absolutely. And after all, the same thing was true about some French chick by the name of Marie. She was such a delusional lass, that she actually suggested that starving people eat cake, because there was on bread. Somehow, she thought that you could make cake without any of the ingredients required for making bread—right up to the point that she had to explain it to an on-coming guillotine blade.

    As with Ms. Antoinette, Herr Bush “stays the course” in his selective ignorance; choosing for himself what constitutes reality and fantasy, he seems to have adopted a mirror-image of the two. His fantasy is actual reality, and his reality is actual fantasy.

    I saw a “blip” on CNN this morning, alluding to the prospect that a Democratic Congress would lead to political war in the United States. They actually used those two words: “POLITICAL WAR.” So—is this their “October Surprise”—to frighten the electorate with the image of possible domestic war breaking out, just because the Democratic Party assumes majority control in the Congress?

    Ah, the glories of living in a fantasy realm….

  • jimBOB makes a good point, but Stephanopoulos’ silence is born of the fact that if you ask GWB too hard of questions, you misss the next “get”.

    Bush has controlled them by limiting access.

    I am constantly annoyed at how big-name interviewers let pass such obvious falsehoods. Maybe someday a MSM outfit will hire a top-notch blogger to feed real questions to the people who will go on camera. (Not saying GS is an idiot, but I am saying the smartest person will rarely be the one with the telegenic mug.

    If the news media was actually trying to do the job of news media, rather than, say, a multinational corporation with huge government contracts, I think we would see better questions and less obvious ball-dropping.

  • Another part of the interview was even more disturbingly funny.

    It’s kinda weird to be reading books about yourself when you’re still trying to be the President. I really haven’t.
    (still TRYING… it’s hard work…)

    I read a lot of books this year. But not one about myself.
    Like those… um… ekalektic Shakespeares… although Prince Hal in Henry IV sounds awfully like me….

    You know, I just — I feel uncomfortable reading about myself. It’s — it’s hard for you to relate, I think.

    (well nobody’s written any books about you, Mr. Stefanopolice, have they? heh-heh.)

    But my — I’m still in the midst of my presidency. And people are writing books about my presidency. It is so myopic in many ways. The true history of my presidency won’t be reflected until way after I’m gone.

    (lucky for me, anyone who knows anything about me would ALSO be dead, so that can’t be bad)

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You don’t think there’s anything you could learn from these books in real-time?
    BUSH: No.

    (ask me about cut n’ run Democrats, please)

  • Absolutely, #s 3, 4 and 5.

    GB Shaw’s quote “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” comes to mind. Ensures, indeed.

  • “Unfortunately for the White House, Google exists, and there’s ample evidence that the entire Bush gang has embraced “stay the course” as a policy priority, including White House Press Secretary Tony Snow and the president’s allies on the Hill.”

    And now we see why Net Neutrality is so important to the GOP. If all you have to do is convince 6 media conglomerates to shuffle these comments to the back burner it is much easier to get away with your lie.

    Maybe we need a new ad, gameshow themed…

    Q. [Blank] or “Cut & Run”
    A. Stay the Course

  • I’ve got one thing to say about Boy George II (now I’m sad I didn’t get up early enough to see the interview).

    Technically, he’s right. The Bushites have been flailing around looking for some strategy that will work in Iraq that we can certainly say they have not “stayed the course” on any real course of action. If on the other hand you look at the larger policy of staying in Iraq to spite the Democrats and the American People, then yes, they have stayed and are staying the course on the road to failure.

    The Gripping Hand is of course he’s used that phrase, “Stay the Course” and it’s anthesis “Cut and Run”, as has Dick, Condi, Rummy, Snowjob, Scotty, Hadley, and all the other little Bushites, to beat upon any American who had the temerity to suggest we take a cold hard look at their failures and reconsider the policy. For this alone he and all his ilk will be going to Hell, and any American who has the opportunity to see him face to face should tell him that.

    BG2 says he will never know the verdict of history upon his failures. That is the belief of an Aethist. A good Christian would not say this, because he would know in the afterlife, if for no other reason than some historian who died a hundred years from now would look him up to talk. But BG2 is correct that he won’t know the verdict of history, because Satan is not so accommidating to historians and their interviewees. Nope, BG2 is going to Hell and the only people he’ll meet there are his victums and all his other personal demons.

  • “Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been ‘stay the course,’ George.”

    Their entire political strategy is to repeat the same phrase over and over again until it burrows into your brain and you can’t make it go away. John Stewart could do an entire show of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Bartlett, McClellan, and Snow saying “stay the course” over and over again, without ever repeating a clip. And then do another show starring all of the generals and Republican congressmen. They really did use it that often. Are Americans really as stupid as the White House thinks we are?

  • When Bush first came to the office of President he declared that he could in fact run the nation from Crawford Texas via fax machine..The fact that he made this claim should have alarmed most people..However in the first eight months of Bush’s tenure most people believed that Bush was simply an incidental president who would have more or less an uneventful 4 years at best…sure there was the Tax cuts and the mild buzz that accompanied it but aside from that it appeared that the agenda laid down by former Moderate President Clinton and the GOP lead Congress was going to be the order of the day for Bush..basically “staying the course”..Then of course the 9-11 attacks happened and changed everything..The moral of the story is That staying the course in terms of presidents and their agendas means that changing course to adapt to circumstances and events is the general rule..It appears that Bush’s comment about “we” have never been about staying the course” is a poor attempt at adapting to the circumstances of a poor political environment in an election season for his Rubber stamp Congress..

  • #11 Shalimar: “Are Americans really as stupid as the White House thinks we are?”

    We’ll find out on Nov. 7th, won’t we? I haven’t seen much evidence of smarts out of the American people in a number of years. Anyone with an operational frontal lobe should have voted these monsters, thieves, and liars out of office years ago… But I’ve got my fingers crossed for the next 2 weeks.

  • Of course, Bush said “we” have never been about staying the course, suggesting somehow that his entire team has avoided the approach.

    I parse it differently. He said “We’ve never been ‘stay the course.'” Which doesn’t preclude someone turning up instances of him saying that phrase; he just meant that, in an existential sense (he read Camus on vacation, remember), that’s not what they are.

    On the other hand, no Democrat I’ve heard of has ever claimed to be “cut & run,” but that hardly is sufficient to duck the accusation. So why should having used the words “stay the course” even matter??

  • Maybe he changed the meaning of “stay” and “course”. So I went to Answers.com and I still don’t get it…..

    STAY
    To continue to be in a place or condition: stay home; stay calm.
    To remain or sojourn as a guest or lodger: stayed at a motel.
    To stop moving; halt.
    To wait; pause.
    To endure or persist: stayed with the original plan.

    COURSE
    The direction of continuing movement: took a northern course.
    Onward movement in a particular direction; progress: the course of events.
    The route or path taken by something, such as a stream, that moves. See synonyms at way.
    A systematic or orderly succession; a sequence: a course of medical treatments. (this is obviously not what the administration means by this word)

    Of course it must be the “we” that he changed so I looked that up to….

    WE
    Used instead of I by a sovereign in formal address to refer to himself or herself.
    Used by the speaker or writer to indicate the speaker or writer along with another or others as the subject/
    Used to refer to people in general, including the speaker or writer
    Used instead of I, especially by a writer wishing to reduce or avoid a subjective tone.
    Used instead of I, especially by an editorialist, in expressing the opinion or point of view of a publication’s management.

    OK, even the definition of “we” can’t have changed that much (especially in light of the first definition). The administration really does think the American public is stupid and has utter contempt for the voters.

  • The fact that the news media will not bust his ass about that comment proves there’s reason to think he could get away with it. Did Stephanoplous do a follow-up asking, “Oh, really?” No. And how Stephanopolous did not immediately fall to the floor laughing is beyond me. Lies are only ethal if a Democrat is caught saying one.

  • Bush has also said that Sadaam would not let the weapons inspectors back into Iraq, so we had to invade.
    The MSM never called him on that, either.

  • Carpetbagger: “What actually happens doesn’t seem to matter; Bush believes what he wants to believe.”

    Ron Suskind in the New York Times, 10/17/2004, quoting a senior Bush advisor: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

    Thus, we get, “stay the course? nope, never said that.” And, this works cause, as noted above, no one calls them on this. Most people aren’t tuned in enough politically to know all the BS being spewed by the administration. If they see the president saying it on tv, it must be true. And on and on it goes.

  • Lest anyone forget, near the beginning of Bush’s presidency he shifted from “the economy is so good that we need tax cuts (for the wealthy)” to “the economy is so bad that we need (the exact same) tax cuts”. So complete denial of prior rhetoric is old hat with this guy.

  • N.Wells… That’s an oldie but a goodie. We should remember the shifting tax cut rationales because, even today, the arguments are shifting back. Once again, we hear that tax cuts are necessary because the economy is doing better.

    petorado: “how Stephanopolous did not immediately fall to the floor laughing is beyond me”

    Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he was thinking, “Maybe I only imagined that he said ‘stay the course,’ or I was just remembering Dana Carvey’s impersonation of Bush senior.”

  • “jimBOB makes a good point, but Stephanopoulos’ silence is born of the fact that if you ask GWB too hard of questions, you misss the next “get”. — Racerex, @#5

    And that would be bad, because…?

    Bush’s stupid and repetitive statements get too much exposure as it is.

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