Years ago, back when she was funny, Molly Ivins observed about the first President Bush’s verbal faculties — or lack thereof. She described him as — and I’m roughly paraphrasing here — “wrestling with his words until collapses, exhausted, at the period, than gamely gets up off the mat for the next match.” The current President Bush has a similar “gift,” as demonstrated by his stumbling over words such as “contiguity” or his infamous “practice their love” comments about OB-GYNs incident.
It’s a remarkable gift, and often spawns truly hysterical results. I’ve often wondered if it’s a product of genetics or environment. But lately I’ve been wondering if it might be contagious.
In the last week, a couple of people who spend a lot of time thinking about President Bush also managed to have a bit of a problem with their words. But in their cases, it looks like they might have said a bit more truth than they intended to.
First, Howard Dean said, in a radio interview, that “”the idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong.” Then, Senator John Kerry said “…and there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the–of–the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not… Iraqis should be doing that. And after all of these two and a half years, with all of the talk of 210,000 people trained, there just is no excuse for not transferring more of that authority.”
It’s a terrible, terrible thing. I can only hope that some day we can find a cure.
The difference is that Bush trips up by saying what he doesn’t mean.
Why, it’d have to be a rainbow ribbon, of course.
I think the ribbon should be perfectly clear…
Jay Tea,
I occurs to me that your remarks, and the thought process behind them, could only come from someone on/in the Right. For whatever other disabilities may afflict those on the left, a lack of any sense of humor, particularly the self-referential sort, has to be prominently at or near the top of the list.
Consider: what liberal has the humor and the objective perspective (never mind the temerity) to poke gentle fun at their own leaders as you have done here? Very damn few, for they take themselves way too seriously. They are, instead, too absorbed with disparaging anyone who dares to disagree with their immutable view of the world.
Congratulations to you, and thank you. It is an important lesson for us all.
The difference between Bush and the Dims is the difference between mangled speech ( a form of dyslexia) and mangled thoughts ( a form of psychosis and stupidity).
The difference is that Bush’s word problems result in many people laughing, and Dean and Kerry’s word problems result in many people dying.
GW trips over the enunciation, the defeatocrats trip over their ideas.
I wonder sometimes if Bush actually does this on purpose, looking like a tongue-tied simpleton on purpose so that he gets “misunderestimated” by his political enemies — which incidentally, happens again and again.
Gray, because you’re kind of left in a fog after listening to them, not really sure where you are or what to think.