In fact, Bush used a bit of self-deprecating humor this week during a speech in Pennsylvania, where he said: “It wasn't easy for my opponent to become the single most liberal member of the Senate. You might even say—it was hard work” (laughter and applause).
I’ve gone through the transcript and highlighted the places where Bush used the phrase, and copied them below.
But why isn’t anyone picking up on the Kerry-Edwards mantra that they have “a plan” and that Bush-Cheney didn’t have “a plan.” My goodness—these guys say that in virtually every sentence they utter! They rarely get around to telling us what the “plan” is. But they sure like to remind us that they have one!
George Bush’s “Hard Work”
It's hard work. It's incredibly hard.
There's a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It's hard work.
And it's hard work. I understand how hard it is.
The plan says we'll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are.
It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy. It's hard work to go from a place where people get their hands cut off, or executed, to a place where people are free.
You know, it's hard work to try to love her as best as I can, knowing full well that the decision I made caused her loved one to be in harm's way.
It's hard work. Everybody knows it's hard work…
I understand how hard it is to commit troops.
[It] has been a pretty hard experience for, I guess, young girls, seeing their dads out there campaigning.
Vladimir is going to have to make some hard choices.
We've done a lot of hard work together over the last three and a half years.
John Kerry’s “Plan” Talk
I have a better plan for homeland security. I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by strengthening our military…
I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies…
And he rushed the war in Iraq without a plan to win the peace.
You don't take America to war unless have the plan to win the peace.
They didn't do the planning. They left the planning of the State Department in the State Department desks.
They just decided the time for diplomacy is over and rushed to war without planning for what happens afterwards.
Now, he misled the American people in his speech when he said we will plan carefully.
I've laid out a plan by which I think we can be successful in Iraq.
So the choice for America is, you can have a plan that I've laid out in four points, each of which I can tell you more about or you can go to johnkerry.com and see more of it; or you have the president's plan, which is four words: more of the same. I think my plan is better. And my plan has a better chance of standing up and fighting for those troops.
But I have a plan to do it. He doesn't.
That's why, in my plan…
But we didn't need to rush to war without a plan to win the peace.
I have a plan for Iraq.
I also have a plan to win the war on terror, funding homeland security, strengthening our military, cutting our finances, reaching out to the world, again building strong alliances.
John Edwards’ “Plan” Talk
They also didn't have a plan to win the peace.
He [Kerry] laid out his plan for success in Iraq, made it clear that we were committed to success in Iraq.
On the $87 billion, it was clear at the time of that vote that they had no plan to win the peace.
We stood up and said: For our troops, we must have a plan to win the peace.
What we believe is, as part of our entire plan for Iraq -- and we have a plan for Iraq. They have a plan for Iraq too: more of the same. We have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the military.
The reality is we need a new president with credibility with the rest of the world and who has a real plan for success.
Look at where we are now. It is a direct result of the failure to plan, the failure to have others involved in this effort.
We have a plan.
... and I hope to get the chance to talk about health care and also about education, because we have plans on both of those subjects -- what we're going to do is roll back tax cuts.
We do have too many lawsuits. And the reality is there's something that we can do about it. John Kerry and I have a plan to do something about it .
And, on the flip side, their malpractice costs are going up. That's very real, which is why we have proposed a plan to keep cases out of the system that don't belong there.
We think we have a plan to keep cases that don't belong in the system out, but we also do what they haven't done.
We have a serious health care plan to bring down costs for everybody....
We've made very clear from the beginning -- and not an afterthought; we said it at the time -- that we had to confront Saddam Hussein and that we had to have a coalition and a plan to be successful.
... Paul Bremer has now made clear that they didn't have enough troops and they didn't have a plan.
John and I have -- and I don't have the time now -- but we have a clear plan to improve our public schools that starts with getting our best teachers into the schools where we need them the most by creating incentives for them to go there.
John Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle-class in this country. That's why we have a plan to create jobs, getting rid of tax cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs; give tax cuts to companies that'll keep jobs here in America. That's why we have a health care plan. That's why we have a plan to keep you safe and to fix this mess in Iraq.
