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 Wed May 11, 2005 18:12 pm George W. Bush |
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If we let the loggers go in and cut down all the trees we wouldn’t have a problem with forest fires.
(George W. Bush)
I think that your President is indirectly stating that every care and precaution would be taken to protect the forests from not only forest fires but also loggers.
Logging brought about the initial wealth of America. Now the time has come to protect the forests. He is only pointing out that. The improbable conditional clause indicates only that.(If andPast, followed by would+verb)
"If we allowed the loggers to go in and cut..."
This makes me remember Charles Dickens describing his’ Journey to Niagara’
I quote,
“ A great portion of the way was over what is called a corduroy road, which is made by throwing trunks of trees into a marsh…”
“ the stumps of trees are a curious feature in American trevelling. The varying illusions they present to the unaccustomed eye as it grows dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality. Now there is a Grecian urn…; a woman weeping…;now a very commonplace old gentleman in a white waistcoat, with his thumbs thrust into each armhole of his coat;… a horse; a dog…a hunchback throwing off his clock and stepping forth into the light.”
Narayanan. |
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Narayanan Krishnaswamy
You can meet me at english-test.net
Joined: 30 Apr 2005
Posts: 67
Location: Coimbatore. India
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| Sun Jul 24, 2005 20:04 pm George W. Bush |
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| Narayanan Krishnaswamy wrote: | If we let the loggers go in and cut down all the trees we wouldn’t have a problem with forest fires.
(George W. Bush)
I think that your President is indirectly stating that every care and precaution would be taken to protect the forests from not only forest fires but also loggers.
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I'm not sure I can follow you. Why do you think Bush was talking about care and precaution? It seems he simply hadn't thought about what he was going to say. This happens quite often to him.
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Others smile and change it. |
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englishfan
You can meet me at english-test.net
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 70
Location: Canada since 2004
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| Mon Jul 25, 2005 17:49 pm Quotes by George W. Bush, a master of the English language... |
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Hey, I should say that's really amasing))) My Mum commented on it like that: IRON LOGIC! Maybe you won't get it the right way, but still we liked the quotation)) Thanx Torsten!!!
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Jailbird
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 04 Jul 2004
Posts: 187
Location: Russia, Moscow
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| Fri Jan 20, 2006 15:38 pm Quotes by George W. Bush, a master of the English langua |
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| Torsten wrote: | | Here is what the most powerful man of the world has to say: |
Torsten, here you're falling for an old journalistic trick. Everyone who speaks says things that would sound stupid in print. We all choose the wrong word sometimes, or backtrack, pause, forget part of a sentence, etc. Politicians are no exception. The newspapers generally clean up people's statements so that they sound okay in print (I know, because this editing used to be part of my job).
The trick here is that when journalists or others want to make a politician look stupid, they run unedited quotations from him, often taken out of context. You can find websites of similar quotes from Bill Clinton. However, since most of the American press is leftist, they do this more to Republicans than to Democrats. They did it a lot to Ronald Reagan, and now they are doing it to Bush.
| Quote: | «If we let the loggers go in and cut down all the trees we wouldn’t have a problem with forest fires.»
(George W. Bush) |
This one was taken out of context. He was talking about a problem we have here with environmentalists. The state governments want to clear dead trees from the forests, because those are the fuel that starts and aggravates forest fires. Environmental groups use lawsuits and political means to stop the loggers from cleaning the dry, dead wood from state forests. This wood then catches on fire, and we get disastrous forest fires. Bush was talking about letting the loggers clean out all the dead, flammable trees, not about cutting down the whole forest. Whoever isolated this quote from context is trying to trick people.
| Quote: | | «It's no exaggeration to say that the undecided could go one way or another.» (George W. Bush) |
He was just emphasizing that nobody can count on the undecided voters, even though polls may claim they are leaning in a certain direction. Remember that various newspapers try to predict which way the undecided vote will go. Everyone says stupidly obvious things sometimes when they want to emphasize a point.
And before you make fun of George W. Bush, remember the famous quotes from Bill Clinton:
"It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."
"The last time I checked, the Constitution said, ?of the people, by the people and for the people.? That?s what the Declaration of Independence says." (The phrase is actually in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, so President Clinton didn't even know the constituton.)
"It has not worked. No one can say it has worked, so I decided we?re either going to do what we said we?re going to do with the U.N., or we?re going to do something else." (Clinton talking about the intervention in Bosnia)
Here are some from Al Gore:
"When my sister and I were growing up, there was never any doubt in our minds that men and women were equal, if not more so."
"A zebra does not change its spots."
"The theories - the ideas she expressed about equality of results within legislative bodies and with - by outcome, by decisions made by legislative bodies, ideas related to proportional voting as a general remedy, not in particular cases where the circumstances make that a feasible idea..."
I don't know what that last quote is supposed to mean. |
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Jamie (K)
Guest
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| Fri Jan 20, 2006 16:14 pm Quotes by George W. Bush, a master of the English language... |
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Hello Jamie,
I understand your point, but it is widely believed both in the USA and outside it that Bill Clinton is the most and George W.Bush is the least intelligent president of the United States. I think a research, which was carried out by a think tank a year or so ago, found this.
Incidentally, I also assembled some silly quotes by Mr Bush, some of which I am posting here:
"I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together." —Bartlett, Tenn., Aug. 18, 2000
"Laura and I really don't realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis."—CNBC, April 15, 2000
"She is a member of a labor union at one point."—Announcing his nomination of Linda Chavez as secretary of labor. Austin, Texas, Jan. 2, 2001
"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.''—Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001
"We ought to make the pie higher."—South Carolina Republican Debate, Feb. 15, 2000
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Ahmadov
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 285
Location: Azerbaijan
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| Fri Jan 20, 2006 20:43 pm Quotes by George W. Bush, a master of the English language... |
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| Ahmadov wrote: | | I understand your point, but it is widely believed both in the USA and outside it that Bill Clinton is the most and George W.Bush is the least intelligent president of the United States. I think a research, which was carried out by a think tank a year or so ago, found this. |
Wow! I wonder what kind of "research" a think tank can do to determine such a thing. Since think tanks are generally very openly partisan, the conclusion of any such research is very predictable, depending on which organization is doing it.
In addition to this, in the US, Clinton is widely believed to be one of the most corrupt presidents in US history.
What is "widely believed" is not necessarily what is actually true. For example, it is "widely believed" that Jimmy Carter is a master of foreign policy. However, among other things, he is the one who did not support the Shah of Iran and thought it wise to let the Ayatollah Khomeini come to power, which has led to the situation we have now. When Clinton was president, Jimmy Carter brokered a deal with North Korea in which the US would provide the regime with free fuel oil and a free nuclear reactor in exchange for a promise not to build nuclear weapons. The North Koreans took the gifts and continued to develop nuclear bombs, leading to the problem we have now. There are many other examples that show Carter was completely naive and inept at foreign policy, but he is still revered in outside the US, and especially in Europe, as a great statesman.
Ronald Reagan is widely respected now as the president who helped the Cold War come to an end. However, at the time he was president, he was "widely believed" among the American left and the foreign press and elites to be an imbecile. People circulated the same sorts of quotations from him as they do now from Bush, as "proof" that Reagan was idiotic and dangerous. If you'd read the Western press at the time, you'd have thought Reagan was a monkey with his finger on the nuclear button.
One of the reasons foreigners form odd opinions of the US, its people and its politicians is the poor variety of US media they have access to. If things have not changed since my time living in Eastern Europe, people with satellite dishes and enough money in their pockets have access to CNN, The New York Times, Time and Newsweek. Those are all media outlets that are openly, partisanly anti-Bush and tend to lionize Clinton. As a friend of mine still living there says, "It's like a 24-hour propaganda bath." (He says this even though he likes Clinton.) All foreigners know the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, but absolutely none of them that I've ever run into knows any of the films put out later -- even by Democrats -- that expose the enormous number of lies in Michael Moore's films.
I'm not saying that everything Bush has done is correct. I am just saying that foreigners don't get the whole story, because they don't get the whole gamut of media reports. They also filter it through their own national preconceptions. |
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Jamie (K)
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| Sat Jan 21, 2006 16:45 pm Quotes by George W. Bush, a master of the English language... |
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Excellent, your post teaches me something else: I should have used "survey" instead of "research" in order not to surprise you. I hope this makes sense now.
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Learning is a sacred engagement. |
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Ahmadov
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 285
Location: Azerbaijan
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| Tue Jan 24, 2006 16:47 pm Quotes by George W. Bush, a master of the English language... |
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| Ahmadov wrote: | | Excellent, your post teaches me something else: I should have used "survey" instead of "research" in order not to surprise you. I hope this makes sense now. |
If you use the word "survey" it makes sense. It just means that the Democrats and the left in general have succeeded in convincing average people that Bush is "stupid" and Clinton was "intelligent", despite any intelligent things Bush has done and any stupid things Clinton has done. They have used this technique on every Republican president since Gerald Ford. (Since Ford spoke well, they exploited his knee injury from football to "show" that he was "too stupid" to stand up or walk.)
This strategy works on a lot of people. That's why over here I get to see people with enormous knowledge of political science, economics, history and foreign policy -- such as my dentist's receptionist, or the kid who mops the restaurant floor -- explain with great self-assurance all the "clear" evidence that Bush must be an idiot. |
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Jamie (K)
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