File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2004/anarchy-list.0408, message 191


Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 19:15:14 +0100
From: Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Reprising a War With Words (fwd)


Washington Post - August 17, 2004

Reprising a War With Words
By Dana Milbank

Earlier this month, President Bush was almost done
with a speech to a 
group of minority journalists when he dropped a rather
startling 
proposal.

"We actually misnamed the war on terror," he said. "It
ought to be 
the Struggle Against Ideological Extremists Who Do Not
Believe in 
Free Societies Who Happen to Use Terror as a Weapon to
Try to Shake 
the Conscience of the Free World."

Or, if you prefer to abbreviate,
SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bushism has returned. The
malapropisms that 
adorned Bush's 2000 campaign before going into
remission during much 
of his presidency have reemerged to garnish his
reelection bid.

In that same speech to the minority journalists this
month, Bush 
offered this definition of policy toward Native
Americans: "Tribal 
sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. I mean, you're
a -- you're a 
-- you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as
a sovereign 
entity. And therefore the relationship between the
federal government 
and tribes is one between sovereign entities."

The day before, when signing a Pentagon spending bill,
Bush delighted 
late-night comics when he said that our enemies "never
stop thinking 
about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we."

While Democrats rushed to agree with that accidental
Bush admission, 
they couldn't compete with the brief but forceful way
he summed up 
his candidacy the previous day in Davenport, Iowa: "We
stand for 
things."

As in 2000, the president seems to enjoy his
linguistic miscues. 
Appearing last week with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bush
said he and the 
Austrian-born California governor "share a lot in
common" -- good 
wives, big biceps and "trouble with the English
language."

The next day, he offered a curious wish for his
audience in Oregon: 
"I hope you leave here and walk out and say, 'What did
he say?' " The 
question was rhetorical, but it is possible a listener
would at times 
be truly befuddled about Bush's meaning.

There was this discussion of Iran policy last week:
"As you know, we 
don't have relationships with Iran," Bush said. "I
mean, that's -- 
ever since the late '70s, we have no contacts with
them, and we've 
totally sanctioned them. In other words, there's no
sanctions -- you 
can't -- we're out of sanctions."

In that same session, Bush might have listeners
worried about their 
civil liberties when he ran into plural trouble. "Let
me put it to 
you bluntly," he ventured. "In a changing world, we
want more people 
to have control over your own life."

As if rerunning the 2000 campaign, the national and
international 
media are again examining Bush's syntax.
"Tongue-Twisted Bush Is Bent 
on Self-Harm," announced the Independent newspaper of
London. 
"Dubya's New Word Blunder" was an Australian
newspaper's take. 
National Public Radio wondered if Bush's gaffes "might
influence the 
coming election."

Jacob Weisberg, editor of the online publication Slate
and author of 
four volumes of Bushisms, said his theory is that
Bushisms subsided 
after Bush took office "because the opportunities for
him to go off 
script became more limited."

Now, with Bush again campaigning, there are
opportunities for verbal 
mishaps almost daily. At a campaign event in Florida
last week, Bush 
could be heard joking about an attempted ax murder of
Iraqi Prime 
Minister Ayad Allawi and his wife. "He wakes up one
night and an 
ax-wielding group of men tried to hatchet him to
death, or ax him to 
death. I guess, you don't hatchet somebody with an ax.
And you don't 
ax them with a hatchet. He wakes up, the glint of the
blade coming at 
him, and he gets cut badly, escapes. The guy hit his
wife, who never 
recovered, really."

This year's standard for Bushisms was the Aug. 6
meeting of minority 
journalists, where Bush offered a range of creative
phrases.

Taxes? "I cut the taxes on everybody. I didn't cut
them. The Congress 
cut them. I asked them to cut them."

Discrimination? "I knew this was going to be an issue
in our country, 
that there would be people that say, 'There goes a
Muslim-looking 
person.' "

Immigration reform? "I have talked about it lately. I
talked about it 
this winter."

War? "I wish I wasn't the war president. Who in the
heck wants to be 
a war president? I don't."

Maybe that's why he calls it the Struggle Against
Ideological 
Extremists Who Do Not Believe in Free Societies Who
Happen to Use 
Terror as a Weapon to Try to Shake the Conscience of
the Free World.



   

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