Reply #30: "Bush's Trifecta Joke: Not funny, not even true"

[LeighAnn]

From MSNBC
Thursday, June 27, 2002
Excerpts: This is its basic telling: “You know, when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending? I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we’d get the trifecta.” ...So far, the president has told the joke on the record at least 14 times. It originated, evidently, as an anecdote he told to business leaders Oct. 3 — three weeks after the terrorist attacks — when he explained his three-part reasoning for going into deficit spending...However, the real problem with the joke is that it is a complete falsehood...Bush never told any audience, or any reporter, in Chicago that he could foresee three conditions under which deficit spending might be necessary. In fact, throughout the entire campaign, Bush had been insistent that budget surpluses would continue...

It's not online anymore. That was on my newspage back in the days when I had time to excerpt.
:^(