Like Father, Like Son

When it comes to mangling the mother tongue, George W. Bush has nothing on his dad.

Image: AP/Wideworld

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


George W. Bush takes a lot of heat for butchering the English language. But let’s not forget, it was George Herbert Walker Bush who admitted, in 1989, that “Fluency in English is something that I’m often not accused of.” Despite his claim in 1990 that “I just am not one who flamboyantly believes in throwing a lot of words around,” Bush Sr. left behind quite a mass of verbal wreckage. Is his son simply following in dad’s footsteps — or has Dubya developed a syntax-smashing style all his own? You decide.

  1. “I want to run the risk of ruining what is a lovely recession.”

    George Bush Sr., at a reception in Ridgewood N.J., Oct. 22, 1992

  2. “We ought to make the pie higher.”

    #
    Born with silver feet in their mouths
    # #
    # Bush Sr. and Jr: Born with silver feet in their mouths?
    #

    Bush Jr. during the presidential debate in South Carolina, Feb. 15, 2000

  3. “We’re enjoying sluggish times, and not enjoying them very much.”

    Bush Sr., at a press conference in Canberra, Australia, Jan. 2, 1992

  4. “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”

    Bush Jr. in Nashua, New Hampshire, Jan. 27, 2000

  5. “It’s no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another.”

    Bush Sr., Oct. 21, 1988

  6. “I hope I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-racism. This is what drives me.”

    Bush Sr., New York Times, Jan. 17, 1992

  7. “I want to make sure everybody who has a job wants a job.”

    Bush Sr. on the campaign trail, 1988

  8. “I understand small business growth. I was one.”

    Bush Jr., Associated Press, Feb. 16, 2000

  9. “The caribou love [the Alaska Pipeline}. They rub up against it, and they have babies.”

    Bush Sr., New York Times, Jan. 17, 1992.

  10. “All I was appealing for was an endorsement, not suggesting you endorse it.”

    Bush Sr., Mar. 3, 1992

  11. “There ought to be limits to freedom.”

    Bush Jr., in response to the spoof website, gwbush.com.

  12. “Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.”

    Bush Sr., Apr. 20, 1989

  13. “The Democrats want to ram it down my ear in a political victory.”

    Bush Sr., Oct. 31, 1991, referring to a bill to extend unemployment benefits.

  14. “For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It’s just unacceptable. And we’re going to do something about it.”

    Bush Jr., Philadelphia, May 14, 2001

  15. “[Those are] hyporhetorical questions.”

    Bush Sr. in 1988 (Village Voice)

  16. “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”

    Bush Jr., May 5, 2000

(Thanks are due to several Web sites that have compiled quotes from the Bushes, including: Jacob Weisberg’s Bushisms; the Bush Library at Texas A&M University; the Useless Knowledge Bush quote archive;
and Daniel Kurtzman’s political humor section on About.com.)

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate