Ex-President Bush Tells ABC's("KIDDO") Sawyer: "We Didn't Go It Alone" (TRANSCRIPT)

MRC ^ | Thursday September 2, 2004 | MRC's Jessica Anderson

[fight_truth_decay]

In the 7am half hour, Diane Sawyer introduced a taped interview with both Bushes yesterday in what looked like a New York City hotel Room. She began, MRC's Jessica Anderson noted, with the first President Bush insisting people see John Kerry's 1971 activism against the Vietnam war:

"I sat down with them yesterday. They were forceful in defending their son. As for Senator John Kerry, well like Senator Kerry, the former President, now 80 years old, is a decorated Navy veteran and he thinks, he says, that every American should look at those pictures of John Kerry back in the '70s protesting the war in his military uniform."

Bush: "I do know that when he came back and kind of downgraded everybody fighting there by talking about gouging out eyes and all of that, that I totally offensive and I think he may have said he's sorry, I don't know. But if he didn't, he ought to, 'cause that was pretty bad."

Sawyer: "Is that disqualifying to be President?"

Bush: "The American people decide these things, but it's something that I would like to hear him say he made a huge mistake on. But now they're saying that he didn't say he said that, he's saying other people said that. Hey, come on. I didn't come in here on a watermelon truck."

Mrs. Bush: "Didn't you?"

Bush: "No."

Sawyer moved on: "Mrs. Kerry, when you hear her saying things like, 'four more years of hell.'"

Bush: "That's mild these days, kiddo."

Mrs. Bush: "Sort of desperate."

Bush: "We've been there. You know, it kind of rolls off you."

Sawyer: "In the ranking of mean campaigns, where do you put this one?"

Mrs. Bush: "Top. They use a word that I've never heard before, or maybe I haven't listened, but there's a lot of fanning of the word 'hate.' I don't hate anybody, and I don't hate John Kerry. I think that's a terrible word for American to use against American. I think it is being fanned as a divisive kind of thing. So I think this is the ugliest."

Sawyer: "Why do you think it is? Do you think that wars inflame people in particular ways?"

Bush: "I think in some way. Any time your country is losing lives, I think there are bound to be divisions."

Sawyer: "There's a persistent comment that you would have done it differently, that you would have created an alliance that would at least have been in there taking some of the burden with us."

Bush laid into what has been a very typical Peter Jennings ‘Go it alone' trope: "We did have an alliance taking some of the burden. Let me tell you something, Diane. I get so annoyed -- not by you, of course -- but when I hear people saying we do it alone.

Is Italy doing it alone? Is Poland doing it alone? Are all the countries in Eastern Europe that had the communist boot on their necks -- Estonia, Latvia, you know-- all of these countries, are they nothing? Do they mean nothing? When Jacques Chirac told them to shut up, he made a huge mistake, because they value their freedom as much as France does, and they got in the coalition, a lot of these countries did. So it wasn't alone."

Later Sawyer mentioned: "And as you might expect, the Bushes reserve their biggest anger for Michael Moore, the filmmaker of 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' [She said "nine-one-one."] So I asked the former President and Mrs. Bush about him and they said somebody should get to Michael Moore and ask him does he still want Saddam Hussein in power? And so we did."

Bush: "That's the choice. That's the choice today. Do you wish that we would go back to the status quo ante? Were they better off?"

ABC ran a soundbite of Moore: "And that's kind of a crazy thing to say. I mean, nobody wants to see Saddam Hussein in power. That's trying to get the issue off, you know, what we really should be talking about."

Back to the interview, Mrs. Bush concluded: "I'm not sure that Michael Moore cares about anything but himself, that this is just a way of getting himself in the public eye."

[tellw]

Well done, Mr. President. I look forward to him zinging back at Kerry if he uses the word "go it alone" in the debates.

[Spok]

"Later Sawyer mentioned: "And as you might expect, the Bushes reserve their biggest anger for Michael Moore"

Has GWB even commented on lardbutt's movie? If he did, I missed it. The smartest response to Michael Moore would be 'Michael Who?'

[fight_truth_decay]

Moore should thank Sawyer and Couric for keeping his name alive in the media.

Moore's interview days will be over after the election....then come the calls from Hollywood Squares and Weight Watchers.

[Mrs.Liberty]

I would love to see Barbara and michael moore in a ring together. She would beat the hell out of him.