Bush on Economy: 'Wall Street Got Drunk'

Explaining the status of the economy to a closed-door fundraiser last week, President Bush said, "Wall Street got drunk."

"There's no question about it," Bush said. "Wall Street got drunk, that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras. It got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments."

Bush made the remark at a closed-door fundraiser for Republican Pete Olson.

No cameras were allowed in the fundraiser, but an ABC affiliate in Houston acquired the video and posted it on its YouTube page today.

Here's the video. Notice the odd analogy, "the economy getting drunk". That's GW regurgitating what some administration economist told him in terms the economist thought GW would understand.



Here's a transcript of the key portion of the video:

GW:It is uncertain, there’s no question about it.

Wall Street got drunk, it got drunk, (it’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off your tv cameras.) It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up, and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments.

And now we got a housing issue, not in Houston, and evidently, not in Dallas, because Laura was over there trying to buy a house today. (From the audience: laughter.. ale voice:"Crawford!")

I like Crawford, unfortunately after eight years of asking her to sacrifice, I’m now no longer the decision maker. She’ll be deciding, thanks for the suggestion! I suggest you don’t yell it out when she’s here. Later, telling her “Hey honey, we’ve been on government pay now for 14 years... so go slow!"

It’s uh.. caused me to lose my train of thought. Anyway.