O'Reilly starts off tough:
O'REILLY:...The first one is, according to a poll taken by the Coalition Provisional Authority last spring, only five percent of the Iraqi people see the United States as liberators. Are you surprised they don't appreciate the American sacrifice more?
Bush says things in Texas:
BUSH: I enjoy how you interview people, and I appreciate you giving me the chance to come on and have, what we say in Texas, "Just a visit."
Bush has powerful stat, O'Reilly understands:
BUSH:....Today 10 million citizens in that country have registered to vote, forty percent of whom are women, which is a powerful statistic.
O'REILLY: The South Vietnamese didn't fight for their freedom, which is why they don't have it today.
Bush touts Iraqi defense capabilities:
BUSH:....you know that these places where they go bomb the recruits, the people trying to sign up to serve in the army or the police, the next day, more recruits come.
O'REILLY: OK.
BUSH: Because people want to defend their country. I believe that.
continued...
Bush has "intention" to deceive, but no proven "capability":
BUSH:....We thought we'd have stockpiles. We do know he had the capability of making weapons. And that capability could have been passed on to terrorists, and that was a risk, after 9/11, we could not afford to take.
O'Reilly gives Bush fair warning:
O'REILLY: OK. You know a lot of people are not going to like that answer, you know that.
BUSH: Well it's a truthful answer.
O'REILLY: OK.
O'Reilly educates:
O'REILLY: See, we have a big deficit here...
BUSH: You're talking about the debt or the deficit?
O'REILLY: The deficit.
BUSH: Yeah.
O'Reilly lacks seriousness:
BUSH:...I put out a hand, a budget that says we'll cut it in half in five years, now, that's going to mean that the Congress has got to be fiscally wise, with our money.
O'REILLY: Has that ever happened?
BUSH: Yeah, it's happening. Seriously.
O'Reilly gets confused:
O'REILLY: You think it was political, you think [Chirac's] playing to his left-wing base in France?
O'Reilly will avenge us:
O'REILLY: Well what about the guys who died in the first Gulf War, when you sign a cease-fire that he disobeyed seventeen times...
BUSH: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: We're supposed to let those guys just be buried in the sand and not do anything? Look I'm, everybody knows I'm with you on that one.
O'Reilly gets tougher:
O'REILLY: They say you didn't register in Massachusetts, is that bogus?
BUSH: I fulfilled my duties, I mean, this is...
[LAUGHTER]
I did exactly what my commanders told me to do.
O'REILLY: OK. Do you think the Swift Boat...
Bush has no knowledge:
O'REILLY: [Did SBVT] give you a heads up they were going to do it.
BUSH: Not to my knowledge.