Bedtime for Bobo: Talking Points

Call on God, but stay clear of the rocks.
No one tells the truth between the hours of 9AM to 5PM.
A sick bastard by any other name is just an asshole.
I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war.
If you've been laid off from work, you're 100 percent unemployed.
I want to talk about three issues facing America. The first are homeland security.
Habeus corpus is like post haste in another language.
It is hard for the Western mind to fathom such a regime that refuses to allow young girls to go to school.
We need to change that attitude about how prolific we can be with the people's money.
It's hard to be successful if you don't make something somebody doesn't want to buy.
Even a broken watch is right two times a day.



As you know, I shy away from hypotheticals, Pancho. I'm going to resist the Christmas tree effect of tax policy. I don't want people putting ornaments on my plan. And there's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead. I am, after all, President of the United States.

Like Tricky Dick before him, Bobo likes to remind people of that. He dictates it, in fact. Two years after he quit, Nixon once told a TV journalist that "if the president does it, it can't be illegal." Shit. Not even Spiro Agnew was that stupid. He was a drop-dead, pork-belching thug with the moral compass of a street hooker on crank. But he was Nixon's vice president, and he only resigned when he was caught red-handed taking cash bribes across his desk in the White House. Mitchell got his come-upance too.

Rumsfeld is the Joey Buttafuoco of the current administration, and V.P. Repo is its Caligula. They are brutal, brain-damaged degenerates worse than any car bomb driver, yet they are the men that Bobo trusts most. Together they define his slide to the ultra-right, his Presidency. It would be easy to forgive Colin and Condi if they weren't so easily duped. There is no hope for Ashcroft. His tap dance on and around the Constitution will be with us for the rest of our lives -- whether you're me or John Kerry or you or Madonna or Bishop Tutu or Michael Moore or Martha Stewart or John Edward's daughter. This is not a simple passing phase sort of thing. You don't even have to know who Ashcroft is to be a victim of his ugly, Henrich Himmler ruin of the Bill of Rights.

Ashcroft makes the current Gang of Four snug: Rove, Rummy, Repo and Ruin. A group photo would rekindle brown shirts and red arm bands, a sort of silent documentary that tells us more about the motive and the level of sociopathy. It also says more about the Age of Bobo.

He has changed the landscape forever. Bobo will be remembered as the Accidental President who pissed all over himself to hold onto something he never really wanted. But he pissed all over us as well, and that stench you are beginning to smell are the flies collecting for a feed.

Let there be no mistake about it. Bobo is a purposely vague man -- vague in a sense that only those in the shadows such as Rove and Repo who truly understand him. Bobo is utterly without form or morals or any bedrock sense of human decency. Nobody trusts him and he doesn't trust either you or me -- except maybe the Saudi Royal Family or the Chinese financing our debt, because at his core Bobo is a rat who keeps scrambling to get back on a ship that he does not want.

The thing speaks for itself:
And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?
-- Washington, D.C., Jun. 15, 2004

Freedom frightens people who are terrorists.
-- Nice touch by Bobo ... it seems death is not freedom?, Hershey, Pennsylvania, Apr. 19, 2004

The Oval Office is an interesting place to meet, particularly, people who are beginning to struggle with democracy and freedom because it's a reminder that the institutions, at least in this country, are always bigger than the people. Sometime we've got an all-right President, sometimes not all right. But the presidency, itself, exists.
-- Bobo is "on" to something, Roswell, New Mexico, Jan. 22, 2004

It reads like a mystery, a novel. It's well written.
-- Bobo's assessment of the 9/11 Commission's report, Crawford, Texas, Jul. 26, 2004

Mayor George Van Dusen of Skokie, thanks for coming, George. Great first name. Fill the potholes.
-- The latest in a long series of mayoral pothole comments, Glenview, Illinois. Jul. 22, 2004

By the way, to whom much has been given, much is owed. Not only are we leading the world in terms of encouraging freedom and peace, we're feeding the hungry. We're taking care of, as best as we possibly can, the victims of HIV/AIDS.
-- Bobo tries to quote scripture here (Luke 12:48 - "To whom much is given, much is required."), Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jul. 20, 2004

In the campaign, you'll hear, we're going only to tax the rich. That's what you'll hear. Now, this is from a fellow who has promised about $2 trillion of new spending thus far. And only taxing the rich, first of all, creates a huge tax gap, which means buyer beware. You see, if you can't raise enough by taxing the rich, guess who gets to pay next? Yes, the not rich. That's all of us.
-- Bobo actually tries again to convince us that he's middle class, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jul. 20, 2004

That's one of the goals we're on, is to encourage programs, community-based -- you don't have to be a faith-based program, although it turns out faith-based programs are pretty good places to find people who want to love a neighbor just like they'd like to be loved themselves.
-- Another Bobo beauty from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jul. 20, 2004

I want to be the peace president.
-- Should have thought it through better, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jul. 20, 2004

We are building a culture of responsibility in America. We're changing the culture of America from one that has said, if it feels good do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else -- to a culture in which each of us understands we are responsible for the decisions we make in life. If you are fortunate enough to be a mother or a father, you're responsible for loving your child with all your heart and all your soul.
-- Bobo's Golden Rule, St. Charles, Missouri, Jul. 20, 2004

I appreciate the good folks from Minnesota and Iron Ridge and Northern Wisconsin who are with us today. Thanks for coming. And by the look of things, I'm in Bush-Cheney country.
-- How about imaginary country ... what he meant to say was the Iron Range, Duluth, Minnesota, Jul. 14, 2004

You cannot be pro-small business and pro-trial lawyer at the same time.
-- Bobo takes on the legal profession, Waukesha, Wisconsin, Jul. 14, 2004

I don't think you order suiciders to kill innocent men, women, and children if you're a religious person.
-- Words about Islamic suiciders (as if suiciders was a word), Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, Jul. 14, 2004

When you hear on your TV screens, America is marching to war, it's difficult to make investment.
-- Bobo about the role of television, Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, Jul. 14, 2004

I went to the United Nations and said, he's [Saddam Hussein is] a threat. And they agreed with the fact that he was a threat, by a 15 to nothing vote in the United Nations Security Council. See, the world spoke. Not only America speak, the world spoke.
-- Flip-flops in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, Jul. 9, 2004

People were nervous during the recession. Then we got attacked, and I'm going to talk a little bit about making America safer. But we got attacked on September 11th. It hurt our economy. In other words, you're in a recession, then we have an attack. During a period of war, it's hard for the economy to grow because people don't feel confident. The concept of war is negative, not positive. I don't know if you remember, but we used to have on our TV screens, "March to War," and if you're a small business owner or a big business owner, when you're thinking you're marching to war, there's a sense of uncertainty with that.
-- Bobo on economic resurgence, Smoketown, Pennsylvania, Jul. 9, 2004