God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

We've never been stay the course.
-- President George W. Bush, 10/22/06

We will stay the course. (8/30/06)

We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. (8/4/05)

We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course. (12/15/03)

And my message today to those in Iraq is: We'll stay the course. (4/13/04)

And that's why we're going to stay the course in Iraq. And that's why when we say something in Iraq, we're going to do it. (4/16/04)

And so we've got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. (4/5/04)

-- President George W. Bush

We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda [by the Clinton administration].

-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

As the Clinton administration drew to a close, [Richard] Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper of their own [which] incorporated the CIA's new ideas from the Blue Sky memo, and posed several near-term policy options. Clarke and his staff proposed a goal to 'roll back' al Qaeda over a period of three to five years...[including] covert aid to the Northern Alliance, covert aid to Uzbekistan, and renewed Predator flights in March 2001. A sentence called for military action to destroy al Qaeda command-and control targets and infrastructure and Taliban military and command assets. The paper also expressed concern about the presence of al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

-- 9/11 Commission report