In this short, two-minute clip from his press conference today on the sad state of the American economy, President Bush managed to embarrass himself (and thus the country) on at least three occasions. First he smirks and gives a smart ass answer when asked about $5 gasoline — not very funny considering he “hadn’t heard” of $4 gas back in February. Second, he repeats the McCain campaign talking point “gaffe” about our economic woes being merely “psychological.” Then, finally, he tops if off with what he calls his “brilliant statement” about “magic wands.”
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I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand — but the President doesn’t have a magic wand. You just can’t say, low gas. It took us a while to get here and we need to have a good strategy to get out of it.
Can this guy seriously be any more out of touch? Watching him chuckle his way through questions about how badly he has destroyed our economy as millions of Americans are losing their homes and being forced to change the way they live tells you all you need to know.
Full transcript below the fold:
Q Mr. President, in February you were asked about Americans facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline and you said you hadn’t heard of that at the time. Gas prices —
THE PRESIDENT: Aware of it now.
Q Gas prices are now approaching $5 a gallon in some parts of the country. Offshore oil exploration is obviously a long-term approach. What is the short-term advice for Americans? What can you do now to help them?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, there is a psychology in the oil market that basically says, supplies are going to stay stagnant while demand rises. And that’s reflected somewhat in the price of crude oil. Gasoline prices are reflected — the amount of a gasoline price at the pump is reflected in the price of crude oil. And therefore, it seems like it makes sense to me to say to the world that we’re going to use new technologies to explore for oil and gas in the United States — offshore oil, ANWR, oil shale projects — to help change the psychology, to send a clear message that the supplies of oil will increase.
Secondly, obviously good conservation measures matter. I’ve been reading a lot about how the automobile companies are beginning to adjust — people — consumers are beginning to say, wait a minute, I don’t want a gas guzzler anymore, I want a smaller car. So the two need to go hand in hand. There is no immediate fix. This took us a while to get in this problem; there is no short-term solution. I think it was in the Rose Garden where I issued this brilliant statement: If I had a magic wand — but the President doesn’t have a magic wand. You just can’t say, low gas. It took us a while to get here and we need to have a good strategy to get out of it.
Q But you do have the Strategic Oil Petroleum Reserve. What about opening that?
THE PRESIDENT: The Strategic Oil Petroleum Reserve is for, you know, emergencies. But that doesn’t address the fundamental issue. And we need to address the fundamental issue, which I, frankly, have been talking about since I first became President – which is a combination of using technology to have alternative sources of energy, but at the same time finding oil and gas here at home. And now is the time to get it done. I heard somebody say, well, it’s going to take seven years. Well, if we’d have done it seven years ago we’d be having a different conversation today. I’m not suggesting it would have completely created — you know, changed the dynamics in the world, but it certainly would have been — we’d have been using more of our own oil and sending less money overseas.
Filed Under: George W. Bush
Tags: energy crisis, Offshore drilling
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future generations will wonder why we didn’t lynch this guy.
Osama Bin Laden couldn’t be any happier either.
What a f*cking idiot! How in the hell did this moron ever
get in any elected office?
Just 10 minutes alone with this putz, that’s all I ask.
Future generations will wonder why we didn’t indict him. We know the answer already.
Spock @ 3:
Name recognition.
Oh my god. This is our president. That’s just dumbfounding.
It took us a while to get here under the watch of two oil men
Never ONCE in nearly eight years have I ever referred to this criminal as “President” Bush. It was always just Bush. The man is quite simply not deserving in any way, shape or form, to be addressed with a title of respect. Which reminds me, has the Bush Legacy been driven past his mother’s house yet?
“If we’d a started a program 7 years ago . . .” Who the hell does he think was running things 7 years ago? Really, I can barely stand to look at this idiot anymore. Everytime he opens his mouth I think, “The man is just an embarassment.”
He’s right on one thing. It did take a while to here to this point.
8 long years of republican control is what it took.
8 looooooooooooong years of repubs.
Correction. Bush Legacy Bus. More than anybody “Barbara With the Beautiful Mind” needs to be reminded of her boy’s “accomplishments”.
this guy is like a SNL sketch only it is for real. Freaking unbelievable!
Thanks to all you morons who voted for him. He has damaged this country for genereations. More to come…
Wake me when it’s over…
me and myself @ 6:
Cognitive dissonance
Hasn’t the idiot left the building yet?
ohh i admire your efficency… King and Court jester rolled in one i call it the “Double Dumb CEO Value pack Prez”….
Fundamental Issue ? Change the dynamics in the world ? Does he even know what he’s talking about ? Frankly, George, you never really addressed the issue until you got us in this mess and now you are brazenly disregarding the rest of us SUFFERING, as a result of your draconian mismanagement of the government apparatus (remember the tax rebates for small business owners to buy SUV’s and Hummers ? So your reciting of fundamental issue was reflected since you took office as the prices rise and Cheney is still in the bunker, you’ve been … what ?
Get a grip man, you have no standing in this world, other than poisoning our airwaves and rendering the American People insolvent with the rest of the world watching your baffooneries. Care you reply without lying to us ?
Cya.
k
You voted for him and the Rethugs, America. You deserve EVERYTHING you get. You kept putting these morons in office and you will now pay for thirty years of Republican economics. Again, you deserve all of it. You are owned by China. You deserve it. You can’t get health care. You deserve it. You are losing jobs. You deserve it. You don’t have food. You deserve it. You are second rate to the rest of the world in just about every sector of innovation. You deserve it. But you got Jeebus and you hate gays. God do you deserve all you’ve gotten and all that is about to come.
And if you don’t think you do, look at some poll numbers. Even with this nation on the brink of complete collapse, McCain is still competitive. You deserve it all.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Declaration of Independence 1776
Spock @ 3:
the American people elected him my friend
Such an unbelievable jackass. He’s not only going to deny that he’s been an agent of big oil from Day One… he’s actually going to pretend he was some kind of “get off the oil teat” visionary.
Amazing. These people always use the same angle; turn reality upside down, then exaggerate THAT.
Annie @ 11:
the only President in the past 30 years who was correct about oil and gas was Carter.
uk visa @ 15:
really - F*&^ THIS AS$%&^. WHY ANYBODY SHOULD DO OR LISTEN TO ANYTHING THIS BUFFOON SAYS OR DOES ANYMORE IS BEYOND ME. HE HAS NEVER ONCE TOLD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THE TRUTH - WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE HIM NOW?
Watching that sorry spectacle makes me nostalgic for Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley.
4$/gallon gas is old news. This time next month we’ll be talking about 5$/gallon gas.
The argument that if we had been drilling 7-10 years ago we would be in better shape is ludicrous.
First of all, oil was at about $28 a barrel and oil companies couldn’t even begin to think about spending the money to explore or drill, it wasn’t worth the effort for the return (the same reason they haven’t done squat up until recently).
Second, the oil we bring up isn’t exclusively for America…it will be sold on the world market, and prices will be just as contingent upon the market forces we see today, including speculation, supply and demand.
Third, and most importantly…someone tell me when George W. Bush’s administration has EVER addressed alternative energy sources before the current situation developed??
The man is a pathological liar and will say literally ANYTHING to keep the wolves from the door.
Someone take note that the Messiah himself, Barack Obama, ALSO used the magic wand reference when talking about the economy… a joke Jon Stewart highlighted!
Given this person’s record at the White House,
I wonder if Congress should consider limiting
executive privilege and the trappings of immunity
that a president can bestow on nearly anyone
or anything.
Bush’s recklessness has irreparably harmed the
country. Future legislators had better take these
matters in hand and ensure that these abuses
don’t happen again.
G.W. BUSH IS THE MOST IGNORANT, PATHETIC, APATHETIC PRESIDENT THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER HAD.
HE IS EVEN LESS AS A MAN AND A HUMAN BEING. HE IS A LYING, CHEATING, MASS-MURDERING, BLOOD-THIRSTY, WAR-MONGERING INDIVIDUAL AND SHOULD BE TRIED AND EXECUTED FOR WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, MURDER, ETC.
CHENEY, RICE, RUMSFELD, AND MANY, MANY OTHER IN HIS CIRCUS FREAK ADMINISTRATION SHOULD BE TRIED AND CONVICTED ALSO.
ONLY IN AMERICA CAN SUCH ARROGANT, IGNORANT, DANGEROUS, INSANE PEOPLE BE IN POSITIONS OF POWER DOING AND SAYING THINGS THAT AFFECT THE LIVES OF EVERY AMERICAN FOR THE WORSE AND GET AWAY WITH IT.
BUSH AND HIS CRONIES ARE SOAKED TO THEIR PORES WITH THE BLOOD OF THOUSANDS UP THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE AND HAVE NO REMORSE, NO CONSCIENCE AND BELIEVE THAT THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG.
AMERICA, THE LAND OF THE FREE, THE HOME OF THE INSANE!
He’s smirking cause everything is going perfectly as planned.
What I’ve always loved about this asshole is that, since there isn’t a magic wand, there’s nothing he can do.
Gas prices? Nothing I can do.
Middle East Peace? I’m not going to actually do anything until the sides stop fighting.
The list could go on and on, but I don’t have the stomach for it.
He has gone beyond being an embarrassment to the United States: he is now officially an embarrassment to the human race.
Powkat @ 10:
Yeah, 7 years ago he directed cheney to meet, in secret, behind closed door, with the
Oil and Gas Industry (Energy Task Force), and it was at that time that the American
public initially got screwed…and it continues.
The guy rambles and stammers like a drunk…come to think of it, he slurs his words, makes colosslly bad decisions, is generally belligerent and falls down a lot.
Yup, the country’s being run by a drunk.
He wasn’t being funny, but defensive. Like Nero who can’t accept Rome burning Bush can’t accept our country is falling apart. So now he’s in the blame game, pointing the fingers at everyone else.
And who is his first target, Democrats. They control Congress; the American people don’t understand 40 Republicans can block all legislation in the Senate and it takes 2/3 to override a veto. All they hear is Democrats control Congress.
Hopefully, the vast majority of America’s uninformed stay home this November.
did you realize he rubs of all Americans when abroad???
LOL i hardly cant see any American without smiling and i have seriously to hold back all the time.. and that to the nice ones who are brave enough to go to other countrys…
you really put a huge question mark over capitalism and democracy…thanks
TO THE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES WHO SELECTED BUSH FOR HIS FIRST TERM AND TO ALL THOSE WHO VOTED FOR HIM WHETHER ONCE OR TWICE, MAY YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOWED AND ROT IN HELL!
Obummer @ 1:
This generation is wondering the same thing.
Kind of reminds me of an abusive husband…
“…An’ if yuh had cooked muh dinner right, I wuldna had tuh hit ya!”
here we have nero, with his violin tucked
up his a$$ as cheney plays it.
Does ending a sentence with two prepositions make the point twice as important or twice as obtuse?
Spock @ 3:
because there are always the 29%ers.
Cannot wait till we don’t have to see this fucking smug smirk anymore.
Impeach.
Indict.
Incarcerate.
Annie @ 11:
Try 14 years - 1994 anyone?
And as for Bush - tsk tsk - looks like he started drinking again…
There is serious brain damage here. I anticpate a new syndrome to be diagnosed soon and placed in the DSM. Key symptoms: phony and forced boughts of feminine-like laughter, smirking, trouble enunciating and distinguishing basic words, and a general schizoid approach to problems.
Robert59 @ 35:
Not only that, but who controlled the Congress from 1994 to 2006?
I noticed that as the questions kept coming, the more shrill he became.
“Clue Phone, line two…. It’s for you Mr. President”
Neil @ 20:
Both elections were stolen. Some people voted for him but not the majority when you actually count the votes instead of letting electronic voting machines that can be programmed to change the votes, do it.
O/T (sorry): Brit Hume stepping down from Fox News
what did people expect fromthe economyunder bush? in his “business career” , he bankrupted harkins oil, arbusto oil, the texas rangers ,and the state of texas. it was a logical assumption that he would break the american economy. they voted for this jerk off twice.
Al Hidalgo @ 44:
Anyone want to try to argue that, had a Democratic president committed even 1% of the crap