George W. Bush Quotes


A dictatorship would be a lot easier ... so long as I'm the dictator.


Context

At the time of this statement most people thought that Bush was joking. But by the end of his Presidency many looked back on the quote and thought that Bush had such preferences. He unilaterally took the country into the Iraq War and assumed Presidential Powers that no other president had ever attempted. Most serious, his administration actually took the formal legal position that the President did not have to obey the law if he unilaterally thought that it was not in the nation’s interest from the point of view of the Commander in Chief. So many debate whether this quotation was a light hearted joke of a harbinger of his real feelings about the Presidency.


Citations

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, Son of President George W. Bush, Governing Magazine, July 1998

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

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Historically, most dictators have announced their worst intentions and in many cases were not believed by much of the world who then learned that they had made a serious error.


Soon he had the power of a dictator but he didn’t force his will on the vast majority of the Cubans. His decrees made all the wealthy and the cronies of the dictator Batista outraged and most of them left Cuba. He was a dynamic demagogue and the people handed him dictatorial powers which he did not reject. He was so popular that he was the only leader in the Americas who would give 4 hour speeches and move through the streets without any bodyguards until the United States and dissident expatriates tried to assassinate him. With all that popularity, none the less he would not allow open criticism of his regime and jailed many political opponents. So he indeed became a dictator but never needed the machine gun to maintain power.


Description of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which ruled Mexico for 71 straight years.


This is the argument—an essence of Fascism—of every dictator from Julius Caesar onward. See {640792} for more of his views on dictators.


George W. Bush
George W. Bush
  • Born: July 6, 1946
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Former President of the U.S., Former Governor of Texas, Politician, Attorney

George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He was born into the Bush family; his father, George H. W. Bush, was the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993.