Simply Terrifying

Wow. Watch this video of Bush’s press conference today. He’s completely come off the rails.

The petulant jack-ass simply cannot stand to have his policies questioned in any way. He has precisely zero capacity for reflection or doubt. I am horrified that he will be in charge of this country for two more grueling years.

 

Comments: 115

 
 
 

Stupidity, incompetence, and arrogance are not a good mixture. Jeebus.

 
 

Wow. I mean … wow. He’s gone way beyond the breaking point.

 
 

How dare you question a president during a time of war…

thus we shouldn’t have elections. All hail King Bush!

 
 

Woah. Leaving aside the bit where he lies three times in one sentence – Saddam didn’t have the capacity to make WMD, he wasn’t funding “suiciders”, he was making payments to their famillies after the fact, and he didn’t “have relations” with Zarqawi, who was in the no-fly zone in the North – what the fuck is going on near the end when he’s talking about how to defeat “resentment” and he starts mumbling under his breath?

 
 

He was already a travesty of a statesman, now he’s becoming a parody of himself. Jesus.

 
 

“Last question. Stretch!”

Hey, just because he’s coming unglued doesn’t mean he still can’t be completely unprofessional!

 
 

My word.

I’d have to disagree; I think he sound like he’s battling desperately to stave off the reality that keeps poking through the bubble of unreflective confidence that’s served him so well all his life until now, and losing ground. If he had no doubts, his words would sound like blather. Instead, they sound panicky.

 
 

I mean, he’s always been thoughtless and inarticulate, but for a while in his early presidency he at least looked blissfully unconcerned with the fact, like he was having fun presidentin’ and stringing all these silly reporters along. Now he’s got that unhinged look like the dad who’s just two seconds away from turning this car right around and going home. It used to be that he didn’t care he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, now he clearly does. And he’s terrified of the fact.

 
 

and let’s not forget hius admitting that Saddam did not have WMDs. Wonder how the RW trolls will spin THAT.

 
 

Q: What did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center?”

A: “Nothing!”

Classic. The mumbling part sure looks like he’s replying to a voice that’s talking to him. The scary part is that there’s probably no transmitter.

 
 

Oh Brad, sounds like someone needs a hope sandwich.

 
 

An inarticulate rube’s attempt at making-shit-up under pressure. It’s like watching a polictical version of “Cheaters”.

 
 

I’m gonna have to take you guys’ word for this. I can’t watch him anymore. If he was the guy sitting on the curb down by the bus station (there’s a great wine shop down there on Coleman, otherwise I wouldn’t have any reason to go down there) with the filthy dog and the heavy overcoat, ranting at the aliens, he’d be funny. But he’s the president. Of the USA. He has the power to affect lives, to TAKE lives.

Oh, I’ll read the transcript tomorrow. Somehow it’s not nearly so agonizing to just read the words as it is to hear him actually (try to) say them. Now Rumsfeld, there’s a wackjob I CAN listen to. He comes perilously close to poetry on occasion. But listening to bush prattle on, answering only the pieces of the questions that serve him best, not providing any real information (We must stay the course – um, ok, but exactly WHAT good are we doing?), and trying not to completely lose it and start yelling at the people who DARED to question his policies is more than I can take anymore…

mikey

 
 

He’s just dribbling the ball around, killing the clock. “Um, Saddam…suiciders… Um, resentment 9/11 suiciders… Can you imagine a world WITH Saddam? Uh, freedom– Weapons of Mass Destruction, um, freedom… hope. Next question. Stretch?”

The more he opens his stupid piehole, the better. Labor Day is right around the corner, and the Repugs have shown no signs that they are pulling it together. This could be an electoral bloodletting in November, Diebold or no Diebold. There are only so many votes you can steal.

 
 

wow… I was waiting for him to run into the gaggle & start slapping folks. In that alcoholic rage kinda way…

I think in a couple of weeks of tough questions he’ll blow up & admit we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq. Ahh, maybe not. They probably lace his bourbon with something to keep him under control.

 
 

He sounds like Angry Dad.

 
 

Oh Brad, sounds like someone needs a hope sandwich.

ROFLcopters!

 
 

Bush has morphed into Shelley “The Machine” Levene from Glengarry Glen Ross. A deluded salesman with nothing but swamp land to sell, desperately trying to make his pitch to an unconvinced audience. The only people who bite are the Nyborgs – crazy people.

Except that Shelley was sympathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glengarry_Glen_Ross

Williamson: Where have you been, Shelly? Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Do you want to see the memos…? They’re nuts… they used to call in every week […] Did you see how they were living? […] The people are insane. They just like talking to salesmen.

 
 

Wait- so now, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. But 9/11 happened because people didn’t have hope. And because they didn’t have hope, they supported suiciders to kill innocent people like on 9/11. So in a way, Saddam, by keeping hope away from the people, was partially responsible for 9/11 and as such we invaded Iraq to bring about freedom and restore hope so people would stop being suiciders.

And there you have it folks. The 9/11 attacks happened because the people of the middle east were being deprived of hope by Saddam. So they lashed out in a misguided attempt to get our attention, like a kid who cuts himself. And now that they have it, we invaded Iraq to restore hope to the region, and make people happy, thus depriving them of willing suicidees. Brilliant!

 
 

And that’s the leader of the free world, friends and neighbors. Inaccurate, incoherent and indecipherable. The guy has no idea what he’s talking about and he knows it. He knows we know it. Reagan, Bush The Elder, Clinton…even the dumbest damn shit they ever said in public – shit you know they just made up on the spot because they knew if they answered the question truthfully, the masses would rise up and slay them – they had the common decency to at least look like they believed what was coming out of their mouths.

This clown, on the other hand, comes off like the press snuck into his bedroom and started asking questions. Jesus God, man…prepare! Study up on this shit, or at least learn an acceptable line of bullshit to spread over the ‘shrooms.

The wretched social agenda, the base lies fouling all waters, the loathesome geopolitcs, the disgusting pandering to the worst elements of society, the craven cowardness inherenit in the unlimited secrecy, the contempt for the democratic process and evolution of society, the mendaciousness, the smug encouraging of a totally misdirected culture war…I could live with all that. Really. I could accept an ideological and political opposite that embodied all that’s horrid in the modern GOP agenda, but only if the guy they say is in charge looked like he knew what the fuck he was doing!.

Gah! How on earth can you support a guy who doesn’t even have the common courtesy to not make an ass of himself while he’s trying to explain things? I find it impossible to believe there’s a significant portion of our population, all able to vote and buy guns and drink alcohol and everything, who’d see this and go, “Goddamn, what steely resolve. He sure dressed down his detractors”…and friggin’ believe it’s true.

I’m gonna go smoke a bowl and watch some cartoons.

 
 

look this is Dear Leader:

he knows he’s The Emperor and hates having to put on the big illusory show of “answering” questions from the filthy masses.

I mean, there are Decisions afoot and this wankery only distracts from Deciding.

and, really, how dare any of us even wonder about such matters, especially when asking after the whereabouts of his Iraq policy, Osama or his Clothes.

and if someone’s running out for some hope sandwiches, I’ll take a footlong with extra joy and a side of fun.

 
 

“Imagine what the world would be like with him in power”

Umm, I don’t have to imagine it. I can just remember back a few years. I don’t really remember him “stirring” a lot up, except when he was fighting Iran, like we wanted him to, and then invading Kuwait, which we didn’t want him to do. I seem to remember those intervening years as being fairly peaceful and prosperous for the American people.

 
 

Which I guess makes the 9/11 a giant cry for help on behalf of those who desperately need hope. Who was it that supposedly wanted to put the 9/11 hijackers on the couch and treat them with therapy again? Pathetic.

 
 

Dammit, I was waiting for him to say “nucular”.

I love it when he says “nucular”.

It’s funny and scary at the same time. On several levels.

By the way, anyone up for a pool on when we will hear him quote President (of Stimpy’s fan club) Ren Höek:
“What do you MEEEAAN you don’t agree with me!!! Don’t you know who you are dealing with!!!” [KA-BAAANG]

 
 

Can’t bear to watch. I listened to some of it this morning and just thought that, more than ever, you can hear the sound of the man and his plan slipping off the rails. It’s vaguely similar to Nixon’s bizarre behavior toward the end of his presidency, but I refuse to indulge in wishful thinking anymore. There’s a lot more damage these people can do in two more years.

And it doesn’t help that the fucking Red Sox just fucking lost four in a fucking row to the fucking Yankees. Fuck. The end times are truly upon us.

 
 

Wooow. I think he just used everysingle talking ppoint ever, including “I like Ike”

I like it when they talk about human rights and fighting opressive governments. Great, seyz I, so where to next? Eastern Europe? Most of Africa? South America? When can we expect the liberation of China?

 
 

“Suiciders”

Shit, asking for proper use of the English lanquage is like asking this wanker to solve a Rubik’s Cube. When he can’t …well he just pulls off the color tabs and put them where he needs them.

 
 

I’ve decided to listen when Bush gives a presser because I really want to hear him say these things. I tuned in late to this one, though.

Did he make up the word “suicider”? I heard him say this word for the first time today. Has he said it before?

And, did you ever notice how much he whines when he’s trying to convince someone about something? It’s very apparent and quite awful to listen to.
Like fingernails on a blackboard.

 
 

Wow that really hurt.

 
The Lucky Sea Men
 

I bet these guys are a lot more desperate than we think. They’re amateurs. They know they don’t know what they’re doing and they know that anyone with an IQ above 90 knows they have no idea what they’re doing. Bush himself is a pickled cipher. Anyone who says this man isn’t drinking hasn’t known very many alcoholics.

 
 

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into the Twilight Zone. ”

It’s a real place.

 
 

A few years back, I wrote the outline of a story in which a king was suffering from a prolonged illness, and had to stay in seclusion. Attended by one faithful servant, he mused away his days and nights, wondering occasionally if his people remembered him, and knew how much he longed to be back among them.

Occasionally, he had frightening nightmares in which he was NOT a king, but a pathetic madman in a dismal asylum. When he came back to himself, his servant gave him soothing medicines to keep the nightmares at bay. And he was happy again.

If I wrote that story now, nobody, but NOBODY, would believe that it was not political satire.

 
 

Shit, asking for proper use of the English lanquage is like asking this wanker to solve a Rubik’s Cube. When he can’t …well he just pulls off the color tabs and put them where he needs them.

My brother and I used a screwdriver to pull the whole damn cube apart and reassembled it, completed. We didn’t want the adhesive from the colored stickers to get all over the place.

 
 

You know what the worst part is? There’s a lot of people who will watch this press conference and be happy we have such a strong, resolute president who doesn’t take any guff from that traitorous liberal media.

Goddamn authoritarians.

 
 

we are being ruled by pinky and the brain, i swear:

“George, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“sure, Dick, (NARF!) but how will we get the pants on the donkey?”

 
 

Ramus, Doug and Mitch seem to be offering the “Hope Sandwich” of which Dave spoke.

George is an idiot, he’s starting to realize it, and all seven deadly sins are preventing him from admitting it or stopping himself from “staying the course”… BUT he really wants to be stopped. He can’t do it, congress and the courts haven’t done it so far, but he’s just as hopeful as any sane human being anywhere else in the world is that the democrats take control of congress this year. Impeachment might be a wet dream for him. If only he could get Lieberman to quit jerking him off.

 
 

Billmon, of course, says it perfectly:

At this point, I would say Shrub is acting like a hedgehog on hallucinogens. His one big integrative idea — exporting American-style “democracy” to Iraq at the point of a gun — has proven fatally, disasterously wrong, but he can’t let go of it, because it’s the only idea he’s got. He’s fully vested in it, like a ’90s e-trader who decided to throw caution to the wind, empty his retirement account and bet it all on pets.com.

I think if Shrub were ever forced to let go of his vision, his one big idea, it would not only crush his fragile ego, it would leave him completely incapable of making any sense at all out of his presidency, out of America’s role in the Middle East, out of the universe.

So now he’s imitating the hedgehog as literally as any human being can — he’s rolled himself up into a defensive ball, spines out. He has nothing useful to say and absolutely no strategy beyond hunkering down and passively defying reality. Which leaves the generals and the troops no choice but to hunker down with him.

The next two and a half years are going to be very long ones.

 
 

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King Spirula said,

August 21, 2006 at 20:29

“Suiciders�

Shit, asking for proper use of the English lanquage is like asking this wanker to solve a Rubik’s Cube. When he can’t …well he just pulls off the color tabs and put them where he needs them.

K.S.: I think that even a solution to Rubik’s Cube that is that simple and elegant would elude Bush. Our Prez would be the guy with the screwdriver, prying apart the little blocks so he could “re-stack them.” And then when he gets it apart and finds that he not only still has to figure out a way to match the sides up, but reassemble the mechanism, he panics and hides the whole mess under his bed, hoping mommy won’t find it, and moves on to something else… . Gosh! Just like Iraq!

 
 

Holeeeeeeeey crap, he’s losing it. I almost feel sorry for him.

My favorite part is when he says that no one in the administration has suggested that Saddam was behind 9/11. Even though he implied it just a few sentences before.

 
 

what we need is a war on resentment.

 
 

Helen Thomas: Mr. President, what do you have to say about the current situation in Iraq?

GWB: Well, yeh see, the Iraqis, the Iraqian people, that is, they- they- its a tough time, but resoluteness will set us through. Stretch?

Stretch: Do you think the cease-fire in Lebanon will hold?

GWB: Lebanon, who, the people just went through a democraticalizat- a democracy, we support them, and if Hezbollah will agree to be dis-legged, then freedom and prosperity will have marche- we continue to support freedom and democracy, in the region there. Yes?

David Gregory: The Iranians just recently announced that they won’t allow UN inspectors into their underground nuclear facility, how does your administration intend to approach the situations?

GWB: I believe in having all options on the table, yeh see, as I believe, as commander in chief of the Unit- and the decider too, yeh see, I’m the commander and the decider. Some people say I can’t be both, ya know, do two things at once, but I can. Like chewing gum and riding a bike, ‘cept for that time I fell off. What was I talking about?

Gregory: Iran?

GWB: Oh yeah, yeh see, the thing about the Iranians, is that they, they’re freedom enjoyin’ people, just like, just like the Iraqis. And if- if the United States can just, just, push freedom over the cliff, so to speak, and that’s an analogy for those of you who don’t know, I’m lookin’ at you Stretch, its also figure of metaphor. So, the Iranians, they just, need a bit of help, which we intend to invad- or impos- or provide.

Helen Thomas: God help us.

GWB: Yeh see, that’s what I’m tryin’ to do. Is it time for bed yet?

 
 

So let me get this straight… I have to try to imagine a world where Hussein has functioning suitcase nukes and endless hordes of Al Quida trained wahabe fanatics attempting to mule them stateside, in order to make the reality I live in seem acceptable… right, I think I’ll just have a bourbon as well.

 
 

Spring 1997:
Karl Rove is bragging about his electoral prowess to Mary Matalin; “Name the biggest idiot loser you can think of, and I’ll bet I can get him elected President.”

Matalin, “OK, how about Governor Bush?”

Rove, “Good god woman be reasonable!”

Matalin, “So you’re all talk ‘eh?”

Rove, “Allright, allright – I’ll do do it.”

 
 

I like it when they talk about human rights and fighting opressive governments. Great, seyz I, so where to next? Eastern Europe?
Hey, hey, easy, ok? Leave us the fuck alone.

 
 

That was terrifying. Oh shit, did that get broadcast to the world?

 
 

“The best way to do hope is a form of government.”

And then Grover Norquist pulled a De Niro and kicked the TV over.

 
 

“The best way to do hope is a form of government.”

Like a hopocracy!

Keep hope alive in Iraq. Jesse, your time to shine has finally arrived!

 
 

Matt @ 19:53, [wild, sustained applause]

And it doesn’t help that the fucking Red Sox just fucking lost four in a fucking row to the fucking Yankees. Fuck. The end times are truly upon us

Oh dear. 5 for 5 fah da Sawks. Is Brad R. the big Sawks fan around here? Alcohol poisoning isn’t cool, ask John Bonham.

Shrub reminds of this great exchange in Apocalypse Now, especially Kurtz’ last line, well OK, the “insane” bit too:

Kurtz: Ain’t no longer classified, is it? What did they tell you?
Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.
Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don’t see any method at all, sir.
Kurtz: I expected someone like you. What did you expect?
[Willard only shakes his head]
Kurtz: Are you an assassin?
Willard: I’m a soldier.
Kurtz: You’re neither. You’re an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill.

 
 

[…] Bradrocket posted this over at ‘fraid Not!. I can’t stand watching anymore of this guy. I made it to the 30 second mark, then I had to stop the video and go and do something else, he truly is coming apart, seams bursting. […]

 
 

I’m prepared to hold off feeling sorry for him until he’s abandoned as a failure by all the jackasses who voted for him–*twice*–because he’s just not a true conservative. I know it’s beginning already, but I figure once Lucienne stops taking his calls, we’ll be there.

And even then, I’ll have to flip a coin to decide if I feel sorry for him or I’m just gonna smirk. And then I’ll remember everybody–and I mean everybody–his policies have killed, from cutting aid to poor kids to cutting enforcement of workplace safety to ignoring the destruction of our environment to just fucking dropping bombs on people, and I’ll go cry some more.

Because let’s face it, there is nothing that will ever convince the man he’s done anything wrong. He’s always going to think he did what was right, and people around him screwed up. Just like there’s nothing that will ever convince the assholes who voted for him that there’s something wrong with their political philosophy. They’re always going to think it would have been fine if Bush had been stronger or the media less liberal or the democrats more cooperative or the Iraqis less ungrateful.

They deserve each other. Too bad the rest of us got stuck with all of them. It was a real nice planet we had here for a while. Shame about the salamanders. They didn’t do anything to deserve this.

 
 

jeff said,

August 22, 2006 at 0:00

That was terrifying. Oh shit, did that get broadcast to the world?

yes Jeff.. here in Australia it did.. and what a wanka.. and our Prime Minister ( John Howard ) is so far up his ass.. you can’t even see his feet..
he is like a clone of Bush .. God help us all

 
 

Anyone else reminded of “The Madness of King George”?

 
 

Fucking hell. Nixon without the brains.

 
 

Impeach Cheney First

 
 

My god. I thought I was mocking him above. We. Are. So. Fucked.

 
 

And even then, I’ll have to flip a coin to decide if I feel sorry for him or I’m just gonna smirk.

I’m going to try to help, Ms. Sidhe. When I was in high school, there was this kid. He’d fucked around and set his house on fire a few years before. His brother died, his parents were badly burned, he was burned and blinded. He went all thru school in my class. He was a messed up kid. He did drugs (and this was ’66, drugs weren’t that comon), he resisted authority, he was a problem. There was this asshole eagle scout kid who wanted to be a cop who tormented him constantly. One day he saw the blind kid holding some hash. He attempted to make a “citizens arrest”. Now understand, I’ve always been kinda, well, let’s call it physical. I beat that eagle scout cop wannabe halfway dead. When he was down I kicked in his ribs. Got expelled. Again…

What’s the point? Bullies. When they start using their power on those who are powerless, we need to be willing to fight. Don’t flip a coin. When this morally, ethically bankrupt administration is on the run, don’t slow down. Don’t hold back. Don’t have sympathy. They would have none for you. They have violated everything you believed in, and laughed at your outrage, calling you unamerican and a traitor. When you have a chance to hit ’em again, or walk away? Hit ’em again.

Hey, I never said I was against interpersonal violence. I’m against war. I think people can redress their issues in the best way available to them..

mikey

 
 

Shit, asking for proper use of the English lanquage is like asking this wanker to solve a Rubik’s Cube.

Ok, so I get that he was being petulent and confused and rambling and not very presidential. What I don’t understand is this obsession some liberals have with “proper English.” I mean, except for “suicider” which I assume is a neologism (but I should really check the OED), his English was fine.

And it’s really silly to go taking mastery of “proper English” as a sign of intelligence and lack of such mastery as the lack of intelligence. The reasons for this should be obvious to any thoughtful person and I don’t need to go into them here. Anyone who is interested can check the relevant literature which is easily accessible–a Google search for “prescriptive linguistics” is sufficient.

Not only is it silly, but it’s also classist and elitist. As someone who doesn’t speak “proper English” myself I find insulting. It’s what I expect to hear from repugs.

 
 

“Not only is it silly, but it’s also classist and elitist. ”

Against a fourth-generation gazillionaire who went to Harvard and Yale?

 
 

You people don’t seem to grasp what’s going on in the deep background here. He’s days away from ordering a nuclear strike on Iran and he’s hopping mad that he can’t even get us excited (and filled with “hope”) about Iraq, let alone the newer, bigger war that’s a comin’! Along with that, he’s got Dick (and all of Dick’s boys) telling him he’ll need to order martial law along with the new war, just to keep us all “on the same page”. You can see that he badly wants to blurt that out…”you’re all gonna be under house arrest in a few days so….enjoy yourself while you can (’cause we’re gonna replay these press conference tapes to see who was with us, and who was against us….if you see what I’m saying. Stretch? You see what I’m sayin’?”).

 
 

“Ok, so I get that he was being petulent and confused and rambling and not very presidential.”

Uh, excuse me, Ed.

The President of the United State of America was giving a press conference. It was his adminsitration’s choice to give a press conference. The time was chosen by his handlers. He was not giving a press conference because someone else wanted him to, or because current events compelled him to do so impromptu. Do you really think it is asking to much for us to expect him to be prepared and knowledgeable?

Not to mention the fact that this man has been in the public eye for well over a decade, has a master’s degree, and has financial resources to provide adequate coaching, training, and preparation.

Look, Ed. The average small-town mayor — hell, the average small town junior high school principal — takes their job seriously enough to make sure they’re prepared and able to answer questions articulately for a PLANNED press conference.

 
 

I will never feel sorry for him.

I just got done watching Part One of Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary. And there we have Bush, on camera, doing the other version of his hectoring, impatient speechifying.

Today at the press conference was the Angry Dad mode, the sort of “why the fuck don’t these people take my word for it and quit asking me all these damn questions?”

And in the clips during Katrina, it was the sort of Jokingly Exasperated Dad, the mood being “What the hell is with these people, what do they expect? If they just sit tight a couple more days, we’ll get them some water to drink!”

I am sorry. I am a stereotypical Bush-hating Liberal. I hate him.

 
 

Keep hope alive in Iraq. Jesse, your time to shine has finally arrived!

Unfortunately, Jesse don’t wanna run nothin’ but his mouth.

 
 

Ed, I’m sorry, that shit *is* important.

It’s not only the domestic audience that sees this, this kind of stuff goes around the world. It makes us a laughingstock (see: the jabbering with Blair at the G8 summit). And his mistakes have a realworld consequence: a few years ago, he did one of his Bush-isms and US diplomats in Asia spent the next two days saying “No, no, he just misspoke, that’s not what he really meant”. His poor grasp of our language almost caused a diplomatic incident. Sorry, I can’t remember the particulars. You know, people in other countries take this fucktard seriously, even if we don’t.

There’s only three options, as far as I’m concerned:

1. He’s hitting the sauce/cocaine/Vicodin/Oxys/the wife’s pot stash
2. He’s got something physically wrong him, a neurological condition
3. He’s on serious anti-depressents/mood elevators/Prozac/Zoloft

1. I can understand, he’s just a figurehead for the evil fucks who really run things, like Cheney and the neo-cons, he’s just a spoiled asshole who’s not getting his way, so why not down a fifth of Dewar’s a night?

2. it’s Ronnie Raygun all over again. The most powerful man on the planet is a physical mess and whatever tiny bit of influence he has over the thugs who put him in the White House is gone. I tend to support this theory because, while being drunk would explain it, the man just falls off bikes and shit too much.

3. We’re fucked unless his doctors can get the dosages right

The only reason #2 scares me more is the thought “Cheney as President”.

 
 

Jesus God, man…prepare! Study up on this shit, or at least learn an acceptable line of bullshit to spread over the ’shrooms.

What, and ruin his sixty-year record? This guy has never taken anything seriously in his entire worthless life. I think that’s as close as he can get to an ethical standard: he’s never serious, he’s never prepared, and he’s never gonna change.

Mikey, I appreciated your analogy about the blind, disturbed kid and the asshole Eagle scout… except I kept imagining Dubya as the spazzed doper and Dick Cheney as the Eagle pervert, creaming himself in delight at finally having found the perfect patsy. Now my stomach hurts.

We are soooo fucked. I’m glad I don’t have kids.

 
 

I am amongst the “can’t stand to watch him anymore” crowd. The last times I watched him at any length were the “Mission Accomplished” speech, and parts of the ’04 debates with Kerry. And I mostly left the room when Dubya was on-I could handle hearing Kerry speak, but GeeDubs? Eugghh! I can handle small clips containing some new, awful Bushism, like, “Is our children learning?” Anything short and so stupid that it makes me laugh. But, longer bits where he’s just repeating his stump speech? Ugh, no. And that’s one of the really annoying things about him, isn’t it? He gives the same damned speech, over and over. Over time, it slightly evolves as new talking points are added or old, useless ones removed. But it’s mostly the same damned speech.

 
 

Not only am I glad I don’t have kids, I’m glad I’m in my thirties.

I stand a better chance than you young pups do of being dead before all the chickens stirred up by this evil time come home to roost.

 
 

The emperor has even fewer zero clothes than when he started and yet he continues his ludicrous rule. My God, I thought the anti-Christ was supposed to have intelligence…who’d a thunk he’d have turned out to be such a dumbass, a complete and utter moron of destruction. It makes me want to scratch my eyes and ears off.

 
 

We are so blessed to have “our Tony”(King of Europe) as Bush’s (King of USA) puppet. It gives us a warm glow of being safe and secure in the knowledge that no terrorist will ever strike at our homeland.

BOOM!!!

 
 

Ed, there’s a world of difference between snobbish prescriptive linguistics and expecting the president of the United States of America to be able to compose a sentence without making up words or talking about wings taking dream. Remember Reagan, the great communicator? Well Bush can’t communicate for shit.

 
 

Ah, don’t you guys know that God made George Bush POTUS so that we non-Americans can feel just a bit smug from time to time. Sure, our leaders are just as venal, greedy and awful but they’re not that dumb and, besides, you don’t know about them. Everybody in the world knows Bush as a man who never met a word he wouldn’t mangle, heard logic he couldn’t ignore or faced disapproval that he could convince himself was adulation.

 
Notorious P.A.T.
 

It used to be that he didn’t care he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, now he clearly does. And he’s terrified of the fact

How about: it used to be that enough Americans didn’t care that he didn’t know what he was doing, but now they are starting to care, and he’s terrified of it.

 
 

Fictional Reporter: (not Helen Thomas)

Mr. President, if people in that region are already feeling hopeless and resentful, how does dropping bombs on them help?

Bush: Next question.

 
 

We are sooooooooo fucked. Headline on the Los Angeles Times front page today (Tuesday), above the fold:

Bush Treads on Critics’ Turf

He confidently addresses favorite Democratic topics, such as Mideast strategy and Katrina

[starts softly weeping]

 
 

[…] (Update) Oh yeah… if you haven't seen it, Bush's press conference the other day was a complete disaster. He finally admitted Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11, but claims that the world would be a worse place today if Saddam Hussein were in power. That's a horribly weak justification for starting a pre-emptive war that created contempt for America, lost us the faith of important allies, and has made us less safe – the UK bombings proved fighting them over there doesn't mean we won't be fighting them here. […]

 
 

Look, Ed. The average small-town mayor — hell, the average small town junior high school principal — takes their job seriously enough to make sure they’re prepared and able to answer questions articulately for a PLANNED press conference.
I’m not saying he should be excused for not planning better. And I’m not saying he isn’t an awful president. What irks me is the constant harping on his supposed lack of expertise in English–as if such a thing actually existed. It only makes liberals look like school marms and fuels the rights accusation of elitism and nanny state. But more importantly it reveals a complete lack of knowledge about language.

His poor grasp of our language almost caused a diplomatic incident. Sorry, I can’t remember the particulars. You know, people in other countries take this fucktard seriously, even if we don’t.

Again, he does not have a poor grasp of language. He may be a bad public speaker, he may speak a different dialect than you do, but BFD. Everyone speaks a dialect and there is no such thing as proper English. If you are going to criticise someone, at least have the courtesy to know something about the topic.

Ed, there’s a world of difference between snobbish prescriptive linguistics and expecting the president of the United States of America to be able to compose a sentence without making up words or talking about wings taking dream.

What is wrong with making up words? People do it all the time. Sometimes the words are useful and stick around. Other times they disappear. Is Stephen Colbert an idiot for making up “truthiness”? And so what if he mixes metaphors. This sort of crap is so banal it’s frightening.

 
 

“onstant harping on his supposed lack of expertise in English”

I don’t think anyone expects him to have expertise.

But competence? Yeah, I’d think that would be one of the qualifications for being Preznit.

 
 

But competence? Yeah, I’d think that would be one of the qualifications for being Preznit.
Your splitting hairs. He is competent. Everyone (except for a few extreme cases like Genie) is competent in the langauge they speak. It’s disenheartening to hear liberals get down on someone because of the way they speak.

“Not only is it silly, but it’s also classist and elitist. �

Against a fourth-generation gazillionaire who went to Harvard and Yale?

Ok, so it’s ok to come down on people “who should know better,” but not the poor unfortunate guy who doesn’t have access to the “right” resources. That is just feeding the stereotype and making him more sympathetic to people who don’t consider themselves the educated elite. And it’s liable to backfire when the Dems want to run a real candidate of the people who might not be so polished as Clinton or Kerry.

Oh and FYI, Carter said “nucyular” too, and I believe he was some sort of nuclear engineer.

 
 

“so it’s ok to come down on people “who should know better,â€? but not the poor unfortunate guy who doesn’t have access to the “rightâ€? resources. That is just feeding the stereotype and making him more sympathetic to people who don’t consider themselves the educated elite.”

This is turning into a kind of silly argument, actually, but I have a question about the logic displayed in your second sentance here. You’re saying that people who don’t consider themselves educated elite would feel sympathy with Bush because they would identify him as being “the unfortunate guy who doesn’t have access to the right resources?”

What are you trying to say here? That Bush actually is “the unfortuante guy?” or that “non-educated elite people” somehow will think Bush is “the unfortunate guy” without resources because we make fun of him?

Are you saying we’re feeding into a stereotype or a false stereotype? You’ve confused me.

And regarding Democratic “candidates of the people” — if what you mean is a candidate that comes from (for lack of a better word) middle-to-lower-class stock, it’s really not appropriate to group Kerry and Clinton together. If anyone’s origins are “of the people” its Clinton’s; further, IIRC, le tout Washington derided the Clintons for being hicks and hillbillies.

If by “polished” you simply mean someone who learned how to behave appropriately in situations where a certain gravitas is called for, then fine, I’ll grant you Kerry and Clinton are polished.

“Carter said “nucyularâ€? too, and I believe he was some sort of nuclear engineer.”

True, and he had a real (genuine) cornpone accent. But Carter didn’t act, altnerately, like a stammering bunny in the headlights, a hectoring, scolding Dad, or a towel-snapping 14 year old at the podium.

But, like I said, this is kind of a silly argument, because the criticism is not that “Bush doesn’t speak like Noel Coward.” It’s that Bush doesn’t speak appropriately as President.

So perhaps ed is just a stealth troll trying to derail this thread(that use of “liberals” gave you away, eddie, boy.).

But it won’t work, eddie, cause we sometimes like to get derailed here. It’s all in good fun.

 
 

For a while there, watching Bush at a press conference was like watching a radiating body of anti-thought obliterate any intelligent coherence. How, though , he’s finally collapsing in on himself. The event horizon is eradicated; there is no more matter to annihilate, and he will soon be gone, a void.

The only question is how much he will take with him before he goes.

 
 

g,

I’m sorry you find this a silly argument. My point is simply that getting all prescriptive on Bush is bad for several reasons. The most important is that prescriptivism is factually wrong. As is the idea that the way you speak is any indication of your intelligence. These facts are no more controversial than evolutionary theory and have been established by linguists over and over. So harping on improper use of English shows a complete lack of understanding of language.

Second it’s bad because it alienates regular people, like myself, who do not speak so-called “proper English”. Why should I identify with Dems when they are a bunch of elist schoolmarms?

And harping on improper “English” is bad for the same reason torture is bad. The shoe is likely to be on the other foot sometime in the future and I’d like to be able to take the moral high ground.

Now apparently SN! is an “either your with us or against us” kinda place, so I won’t continue to question your dogma. But I’m pretty sure I’m no troll.

 
 

As is the idea that the way you speak is any indication of your intelligence

IMHO, it sure is an indication of laziness. Much like a horribly large number of people in this country, he simply can’t be bothered. This pisses me off to no end.

 
 

You people who are debating Bush’s speech patterns should read “The Bush Dyslexicon” by Mark Crispin Miller. It’s pretty fascinating.

 
 

IMHO, it sure is an indication of laziness. Much like a horribly large number of people in this country, he simply can’t be bothered. This pisses me off to no end.
Unfortunately your honest opinion is disconfirmed by decades of linguistic research. Laziness has nothing to do with it. You might want to look at the relevant literature.

 
 

The wierdest thing about Bush is that it seems to me that he CHOOSES to speak that way. He’s consciously developed this sort of cornpone Harry Truman aw-shucks manner of speaking to (I’m assuming) mask his blue blood heritage. He uses idiotic faux-folksy words that sound utterly ridiculous and, worse, utterly inauthentic. I mean, where in the hell did that accent come from? It’s the verbal equivalent of the pictures of him sitting in the bed of the pickup in a cowboy hat and denim shirt.

The thing that has changed is that, given the events of the last year, the act is no longer funny or corny but downright scary. When you see him fumbling around to formulate even the most rudimentary justification of his policies, geez, that’s frightening. He’s like a kid at the front of the class trying to bullshit his way through a book report on a book he hasn’t read (obviously NOT the Stranger).

But that’s always the strangest part, that it seems to be this adopted pose. It’s pathetic, and it’s certainly not an indication of steely resolve or even an intact ego. It reminds me of people you’d meet in college who pretended they were from England or something and then you find out they’re from Milwaukee. Of course, these people were 19 yrs. old.

 
 

Ed, the complaint has nothing to do with Proper Grammar and everything to do with the fact that the man is clearly floundering in his own soup. He’s been caught in a lie, he doesn’t know what to say, and it’s obvious even to him. He’d get more respect if he stopped being defensive and just admitted he screwed the pooch. It’s called honesty. We’re not going to get it, of course, because telling the truth would mean the Emperor knows he’s naked, and well, game over.

Basically, we don’t care about down-home accents or dangling participles — so what? We just don’t want to watch this guy flopping like a fish on the hook. Zero credibility. It’s just painful. I found myself pleading for the clip to end.

 
 

As follow up, I agree that the creepiest part of this video is about 3/4 through where Bush starts mumbling something under his breath. It’s like he answering the voices in his head. Can anyone tell what he’s saying there?

 
 

I’ve been saying for the past several months that Bush walks and talks like someone who has had a stroke or a series of minor ischemic attacks. His gait is off. His speech patterns are completely whack. I survived the 80s, and he reminds me a lot of people who had done massive amounts of cocaine for prolonged periods of time. People who used to laugh about the way phone numbers they had known for years would just suddenly be ‘scrubbed’ from their brains. (Yeah, it was not that funny, really, but we used to laugh about it.) Maybe his drug and alcohol problems both are either not that far in past or are still current. Or maybe he’s simply got some serious medical issues. Any way or no way, the idea that he is the leader of the so-called free world is completely terrifying.

 
 

Ed dear, you’re going to have to take your little straw friend and go home.

“harping on proper English”….”obession with proper English.”

Ed, dear, there was only one post that even used the phrase “proper English.” That’s hardly an obsession, nor it is a harp.

Here’s what commenters said about Bush:

“he lies three times in one sentence”…. “mumbling”… “An inarticulate rube’s attempt at making-shit-up under pressure”….”thoughtless and inarticulate”…”Inaccurate, incoherent and indecipherable.”…” man who never met a word he wouldn’t mangle”….”His poor grasp of our language almost caused a diplomatic incident.”

So, you can rest easily, Ed., no one is castigating Bush for his improper use of the pluperfect tense.

Now tell your little straw man to run along, I think I hear Karl calling for him.

BTW — I think it’s sweet how you are so shyly, but gradually revealing yourself to be a right winger. It must mean we’ve earned your trust.

 
 

The moment where I finally realized that I could no longer listen to this president for extended periods of time was when I heard him say “Terrorists are trained to disassemble. That means ‘make stuff up'” on live television.

That was it – I give up. Bush wins, content is totally subjective, and any argument that words should have some sort of set “meaning”, however vague, is an idea I now relegate to the land of opium dreams.

 
 

Ed is also completely full of shit. I have 13-year-old ELA students who could talk rings around this fuckwit because they tend to prepare their lies in advance.

 
 

Why is Ed defending the village idiot? Bush hasn’t got the brains or social skills to work a sandwich counter, never mind the Presidency.

I guess there’s the ‘suiciders’ [a Bush-invented word that exists nowhere outside of his strange mind], the decider [another eminently mockable Bushism] and a whole lot of DENIERS that support them, Ed being one.

 
 

As for Ed’s argument that corn-pone trash-speaking Bush deserves respect because he’s some kind of grass roots linguist, that’s just such a load of horse manure. The man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he went to ivy league schools, he’s as snotty as they fucking get. You think he’d sit down with you Ed, share a burger, and shoot the shit?

He’s ivy league, he’s snooty, he’s arrogant, he looks down on people, AND he’s stupid. His thoughts reflect an appalling absence of cognitive ability. How does this make him qualified to be President. It doesn’t, it shouldn’t and if it weren’t for idiots [like you] who vote for idiots, out of some misguided notion that he’s home grown and down to earth with the people (which he isn’t …see Katrina), he wouldn’t be.

 
 

“crumbles said, 19:49: Bush has morphed into Shelley “The Machineâ€? Levene from Glengarry Glen Ross.

and cheney is the kevin spacey character who set shelley up to fail.
and as things get worse and worse for Bush just maybe it will dawn on him that he was the sucker for cheneys plans, and in a climactic confrontation Bush whimpers: “why did you do this to me” and like the spacey character cheney replys: “because I dont like you”.

 
 

Unfortunately your honest opinion is disconfirmed by decades of linguistic research. Laziness has nothing to do with it. You might want to look at the relevant literature.

Then cite the “relevant literature,” Ed. (I love the “argument from unnamed authority,” by the way.) I kind of doubt there is much linguistic research — certainly not decades of it — about Bush’s speaking style, (mis)use of language and inability to form complete sentences on the fly.

I suspect the literature you’re thinking of is the research into Black English Variant (or whatever the current name for it is; I’ve been out of the field for a while) or some other dialect, which was often presumed to arise out of laziness — a presumption that has been effectively rebutted by research. Bushspeak isn’t a dialect (though it may run in the family — George Pater suffered from it a bit as I recall), so none of that research means diddly or squat. Whatever dialect Bush speaks in, he can’t even get that right — his use of idiom is incredibly inept, for instance. (Remember his “Fool me once” debacle?)

Anyway, the point is not about whether Bush speaks in Received Pronunciation and according to Strunk & White. The point is, this guy is supposed to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world; he is supposed to be explaining his policies and his government’s actions; and he can’t put together two coherent sentences in a row. This is the face of America to the world, and he comes off as a petulant, stammering buffoon. That is the problem.

 
 

I’d still like to know in what regional dialect variant the word “disassemble” means “make stuff up”.

That’s not a problem with one’s accent; that’s a problem with one trying to use vocabulary words one has not yet fully mastered.

 
 

stephen colbert plays the character of a late-night TV show that is parody, and watched by a small percentage of the population.

George W Bush plays the part of the POTUS in daily life.

if you cannot see the difference, then i am afraid you have worse problems than the collective brains of S,N!’ers can hope to resolve

 
Nancy in Detroit
 

Unfortunately your honest opinion is disconfirmed by decades of linguistic research. Laziness has nothing to do with it. You might want to look at the relevant literature.

It’s “humble”, not “honest”. And you might want to go fuck yourself.

 
 

Boy sublty is clearly lost on you guys. Let me say this, I am not defending Bush. I think he is a rotten President. I agree with everyone that said that the press conference was a joke. Whether or not he is an idiot I’ll leave open. I just don’t know.

You want my credentials? OK, I have a PhD in linguistics from Rutgers University. You can read my dissertation and other relevant work here. I have a couple of years teaching experience at Rutgers, UMass, SUNY Albany, University of Rochester, and Montclair State.

You want reference to the literature, open any ling101 textbook. Read Language Log or even look on Wikipedia under “Linguistic Precriptivism.” It’s all there. Here’s a short passage from Fromkin & Rodman’s An Introduction to Language:

Linguists oject to prescriptivism for a number of reasons. The views are elitist, in that they assume that the linguistic grammars and usages of a particular group in society (usually the more affluent and those with political power) are the only correct ones. Prescriptivists for the most part seem to have little knowledge of the history of the language and less about the nature of language, that fact that all dialects are rule governed and that what is grammatical in one language may be ungrammatical in another (equally prestigious) language.

I am also a pretty confirmed liberal. Hell, I shook Mo Udall’s hand when I was a kid. Not sure How I can prove my liberality to you guys. Maybe Gavin M can vouch for me.

As for the “straw man”, I simply don’t believe it’s a straw man. The Bushism stuff is a cottage industry. And I feel it hurts liberals for the reasons I mentioned above. But hey, if no one here is saying that, then I apologize.

I am disturbed that I get attacked in here as being a conservative troll for simply pointing out that one type of argument against Bush is wrong. If you can’t discern the difference between an attack on a type of argument and support for Bush, then I am even more worried about liberals in this country than I was before.

 
 

Um, oh yeah, the “check the relevent literature” bit was just me riffing on Chomsky. He does that all the time.

 
 

You can talk about prescriptive versus descriptive all you want, but Bush not only doesn’t speak as he should, he also doesn’t speak as the rest of us do.

 
 

‘I am disturbed that I get attacked in here as being a conservative troll for simply pointing out that one type of argument against Bush is wrong.”

For fucking constantly pointing out that an argument that nobody made (that one specific form of English is the only acceptable one) is wrong, yes, you are a troll.

 
 

I specifically posted in response to one person. And after that only responded to people who responded to me.

And the argument I’m trying to make is simply this: to take language performance as a sign of intelligence or the lack of it is wrong. So if you want to bust Bush’s chops, why not do it on something more substantive–there’s plenty there. And in fact many of the posts in this thread have done so.

 
 

I’m quite amused at how defensive and insecure Bush has become.

 
 

Just FYI in this video clip when our president mentioned the people who attacked on 9-11 it was the only part of the video that beeped repeatedly that he was lying by voice detector analysis.

Gee if he was lying what does that represent? Class? Oh…ED the PHD guy please stand up and tell the rest of the class what you think it means?

We are all listening.

 
 

Ed,
I object to Bush’s English because he is often incoherent. The point of language is communication. Whether his idiom follows internal rules is beside the point.

I object to Bush’s English because it sends a message that informal sloppy speech is appropriate at all times, if you’re rich and powerful enough. Who is being elitist here?

I object to Bush’s English because he sounds like a moron. I concede that language is but one measure of intelligence, but it is one nonetheless. A large part of Bush’s job is speaking effectively. He is not getting paid for his spatial or kinesthetic intelligence.

 
 

Ed reminds me of Greenwald in his blog’s comments. A little touchy, but darn persistent. I tend to agree with Ed. But as Chris said, it’s Bush’s damn job to speak effectively and he really embarrasses me to the point of pissing me off. It’s fun to watch him squirm, given my reluctant but real wish to see him fall hard. (Do Cheney first.)

 
 

So, his rhetorical question was,

“Imagine what the world would be like with him (Saddam Hussein) in charge.”

I wonder just how many people (particulalry those who bother to cast their precious democratic votes in the U.S. – or anywhere in the world) realize how much of the rest of the world is asking the unrhetorical question,

“What is the world coming to with him (George Bush) in charge?”

I still can’t understand why Bill Clinton was impeached and censured because he lied about gratuitous fellatio, constituting adultery (not against any law) – yet ‘Half-Staff’ Bush (you do realize that most American flags, and now just about every other country’s, has been at half staff since he was elected) has clearly lied, severely decieved and blatently broken laws – constitutional laws – and has not even been called onto the ‘congressional carpet.’

What has happened to us… we used to throw tea in the bay, now we just surf the web and watch cable TV…

Have we become sheep?

When do we ‘rise up’ and take back our country and cease the crusade – the ‘American Imposition’ on the rest of the world?

We spend so much of our credit and tax dollars (my money/your money) on ‘world’ repairs (and so we should, since ‘we’ caused most of the damages) – but wouldn’t it be far better if most of that money went to repairing the U.S. (Health, Infrastructure, Education) and doing good, rather than in compensation, for the rest of the world?

Aside from a (radical) Muhammedan disdain for Israel, and an inherant Hebrew distaste for compromise with Arab states (both make as much sense as Bush does) we should be able to be ‘friendly’ with everyone in the world – after all, we’re the big dog – we have nothing, or no one to fear, so we SHOULD be benevolent as most people think their gods are – not as their god, but simply as their friend, out of basic humanity.

There is one race on this planet – the Human Race!

Call me when the revolution begins!

 
 

Quoth Robert:

“August 21, 2006 at 21:04

“A few years back, I wrote the outline of a story in which a king was suffering from a prolonged illness, and had to stay in seclusion. Attended by one faithful servant, he mused away his days and nights, wondering occasionally if his people remembered him, and knew how much he longed to be back among them.

“Occasionally, he had frightening nightmares in which he was NOT a king, but a pathetic madman in a dismal asylum. When he came back to himself, his servant gave him soothing medicines to keep the nightmares at bay. And he was happy again.”

Julian Barnes wrote it as a short story 1989. Not a king, but exactly this idea. “The Survivor”, in “A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters”. Amazing book.

 
 

As ever, making things up as he goes along…

 
 

Wow…I’ve stumbled upon a Pantywaists-R-Us website wherein the mind- bogglingly naive dwellers, in their vapid world of make-believe, say things in their thirty- or forty-something childlike almond-eyed way, such as, “Bush-is-a-liar ’cause we say so,” and whoosh, it’s “afactcausewesaidit.” Liberals will all be in hell one day, so I try to enjoy ’em while I can. By the way, other than through sheer coddling, performing sexual favors on Achmed, retreating, and/or denouncing Bush and other Republicans, I challenge anyone to quote any Democrap who has publicly stated a real plan to fight terrorists (remember– no kneepads)…. I already hear the crickets chirping….. No, really, that killing 3,000 Americans thing on 9/11– it honestly should make you want to kill a terrorist for mommy, and if it doesn’t, then you are an unpatriotic un-American little sissy.

 
 

Now THAT’s a troll!

 
 

Bush needs to learn how powerful “turning the other cheek” is.

 
 

I think people need to realize just how difficult it is to speak in front of the whole nation. Yes Iraq was a bust but i do ask you to first before you decide what is wrong and what is right maybe do some research on just how much better things are in parts of Iraq. Kurdistan is prospering the area we were are holed up is in bahgdad the most. The whole country isn’t against us. Until u show all the facts until you know all the facts don’t say something is wrong. It looks to me as if you guys agree with a dictator who killed thousands of his own people in the hope of ridding a race. So your choice is to either calm down a little and get off the bandwagon of attacking the president. I remeber when we were united but now we seem to be worse then children as we destroy a person who isn’t the only person running this country. By the way i have never seen a vote in congress where only republicans voted one way and Democrats the other. Both parties are involved so grow up.

 
 

[…] [video of this dialogue] […]

 
 

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