I have a confession to make and I don’t want you to get angry at me, or feel betrayed, or reel back in horror, or send me away to the Worker’s Paradise of Siberia for “re-education”, or anything like that.

I’ve always like George W. Bush. And I’m going to miss him when he leaves the White House to make room for Barack Obama, who will win tomorrow.

Okay, I hated Dubya for his war “policies”, Guantanamo Bay, Dick Cheney, his so-called “faith-based initiatives”, his indifference to his own citizens who struggled daily for basic rights like health and education, and so on.

But I sure as hell loved his horribly mangled grammar, his ability to say some of the most stupid things that does not befit the President of the United States, and his lack of embarrassment — or complete unwareness — at what he’d said.

I’ve cringed and sniggered and often laughed out loud at Dubya’s bloopers. I’ve watched The Letterman Show whenever I could just for the “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches” segment.

So, with his impending departure from the White House, I’d like to take a look back at some of my favourite things he’s said in the last 7-8 years, for posterity (and in no particular order, there was a lot to sift through). The quotes are from the excellent DubyaSpeak.com website, who have done an amazing job “recording the damage” over the years.

• I can press when there needs to be pressed. I can hold hands when there needs to be — hold hands. — January 6, 2008
• I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right. — July 22, 2001
• It is naive and dangerous to take a policy that he suggested the other day, which is to have bilatarelations with North Korea. — October 8, 2004
• I don’t like to put words in leaders’ mouths. I don’t particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it. — November 10, 2007
• It reads like a mystery, a novel. It’s well written. — July 26, 2004 (pertaining to the 9/11 Commission’s report)
• She is a fabulous First Lady. I was a lucky man when she said, yes, I agree to marry you. I love her dearly, and I’m proud of the job she’s doing on behalf of all Americans. Just like I love my brother. — September 9, 2003
• The Ambassador and the General were briefing me on the — the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice. — October 27, 2003
• You know, I’m — I’ve been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times. — April 19, 2007
• That’s George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three — three or four books about him last year. Isn’t that interesting? — May 5, 2006
• It’s a myth to think I don’t know what’s going on. And it’s a myth to think that I’m not aware that there is opinions that don’t agree with mine. Because I’m fully aware of that. …I see a lot of the news. Every morning I look at the newspaper I can tell you what the headlines are. I must confess, if I think the story is, like, not a fair appraisal, I’ll move on. — December 12, 2005
• I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. You’re doing a heck of a job. You cut your teeth here, right? That’s where you started practicing? That’s good. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me. — May 27, 2004
• I love the story of America, I love the fact that people who started with nothing and have built a fantastic food processing business. — October 14, 2003
• There’s no need for any unrestrained yelling. — July 30, 2003
• REPORTER: Do you think you would be able to work effectively with a future Australian leader, be it either a successor of Mr. Howard from his own party, or from their opposition?
  DUBYA: Well, I suspect he’s going to outlast me, so that is a moot point. Probably a question you ought to ask him. Somebody said, you and John Howard appear to be so close, don’t you have any differences? And I said, yes, he doesn’t have any hair. — May 16, 2006
• We can help somebody who hurts by hugging a neighbor in need. — April 4, 2003
• First we talked about the bridge that collapsed. I was here earlier, saw the collapse first hand. I was impressed by the magnitude of the problem. It was — my heart was touched by the fact that people lost their lives. — August 21, 2007
• We have overcome a recession. That means things are going backwards. — March 26, 2004
• Rarely is the question asked, are, is our children learning? — January 11, 2000
• I’m the master of low expectations. — June 4, 2003
  
• Nobody has accused me of having a real sophisticated vocabulary. — October 11, 2006

Feel free to add your favourite Dubya quotes, as we begin to farewell Dubya with joy.

I have been copping it from all angles of late from neo-con bloggers, probably because a few days back I dared point out how inept and unqualified GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin looks. And haven’t the piercing rebuttals been coming thick and fast. A ’stoopid conservative’ rushed to reveal the grammar error that never was. JF Beck, unhappy that I’d taken shots at his VPILF, was merciless in his deconstruction of my joke about John F. Kennedy reading Sweet Valley High (a chronological impossibility, says JF, so I must be dumber than Palin herself). He also pointed out the fallacy of my claim that one can have “empathy for the environment” - a fair criticism, one I hope JF extends to the “war on terror”, a phrase that appears in his blog numerous times.

The ever-boring Currency Lad picked up on JF’s final retort: my mention, in the context of Palin’s naivete, of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. A paraphrasing of CL’s febrile historical revisionism runs something like this:

Kennedy didn’t solve the crisis you know and anyway he actually caused it and also did you know that he endangered the United States by putting Jupiter missiles into Turkey and hey, hey, hey he also tried to kill Castro with a poison milkshake and that’s, like, really bad, and did you also know that he took drugs, slept with lots of girls and his daddy got him into power and that his book Profiles of Courage was plagiarised and was only a best-seller because Joe Snr. bought all the copies and and and… <snip>

CL, who claims a PhD in ecclesiastical history, seems to have more problems with the secular stuff. In any case, my initial comment was about how Kennedy - himself a graduate of real History - handled having pointy Soviet nuclear thingies in his backyard, as compared to how a future President Palin might deal with such a problem. All eyes were on the VP debate earlier today for some insight into such a proposition.

Palin’s performance was jittery and sporadic but, on the whole, better than her woeful output from the Katie Couric fireside chat. She sounded stronger, if a little hackneyed and a lot rehearsed, when she described herself as a “Washington outsider”, a down-home type who knows the pains and perils of ordinary voters. On matters of foreign policy - Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel - she was helplessly outpointed against Biden, who has 35 years of experience in the Senate. The whole thing was at best a draw, at worst a win on points to Biden - but given Palin’s recent efforts, that’s probably better than many conservatives were expecting.

Still, the debate telecast will give JF Beck some good entertainment tonight. If only he had a cat to watch it with…

UPDATE

A kind reader has kindly directed me to Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, kinda.