I read this column in my hometown paper this morning, it's online but available only if you have a paid subscription which my family at home has. It's longer than the four paragraphs allowed so if in violation Admins please delete, with my apologies . . . The last line is my favourite.
http://tinyurl.com/3okehThe literate everywhere brace for more Bushlexia
SUSAN CHILTON
(Dec 4, 2004)
Am I the only Canadian who was happy to see George W. Bush re-elected?
All right, in light of his miscalculations, machinations and heightened Mideast mayhem, "happy" is an overstatement.
But for sheer entertainment value, even among politicians, few of whom are known for their intellectual prowess, the man is peerless.
Dimwitticisms, or "Bush-isms," are delightfully air-headed. Certainly we would prefer erudition from the president of the United States.
However, once we work our way past images of chaos and carnage, Bush is a veritable minefield of explosive laughs.
I revel in his Bushlexia. I envy Laura, seated at his side, suppressing her own sharper mind and stoically stifling giggles with his every other utterance.
In commemoration of my favourite cowpoke-in-chief's visit to Canada, let's take a stroll down memory lane.
Which one of the following statements was not delivered by the leader of the free world during his first term in office:
a) Families is where our nations take hope, where wings take dream.
b) Our enemies are innovative and resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people and neither do we.
c) Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me.
d) I think we agree, the past is over.
e) It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.
f) We ought to make the pie higher.
g) Will the highways on the Internet be more few?
h) I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.
i) As you know, these are open forums. You're able to come and listen to what I have to say.
j) I love to bring people into the Oval Office and say this is where I office.
k) Our nation must come together to unite.
l) I look at the glass and know it's more half full than half empty.
m) Let me put it to you bluntly. In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life.
n) Too many good doctors are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practise their love with women all across this country.
o) I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.
p) For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.
The one he didn't say -- yet, or within earshot -- was l) "more half full than half empty."
I'm not judging his values. I am judging the value he brings to the table. Educators must shudder when he espouses their cause:
Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
And if you're interested in the quality of education and you are paying attention to what you hear at Laclede, why don't you volunteer? Why don't you mentor a child how to read?
Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling.
Teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
The man's lexical legacy will be legendary: nucular, analyzation, misunderestimated, mential, resignate, subsidation, sublimabable, suiciders.
Let's not overlook his marvellous gift for malapropism: fallacy for fallibility; tenants instead of tenets; hostile rather than hostage.
Because he is emboldened by his support for term two, I am on Bush Alert (words not normally seen together) for upcoming Freudian slips.
Here are some of my predictions: moral combat, mortal majority, global warning, global denomination, Democraps, constitutional appendment, righteous wing and Ho v. Wade.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility in Bush's Grave New World.
He has long been saying missile when he surely meant missive, and convoy when envoy was the appropriate choice.
The Record's deputy city editor has to hand it to him: G.W. really puts the dense in presidency.
Susan Chilton can be reached at the K-W Record schilton@ therecord.com.
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