Bushisms re-emerge on campaign trail

WASHINGTON – 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, SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAW- TTTSTCOTFW.

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 re-emerged to garnish his reelection bid.

In that same speech to the minority journalists this month, Bush offered this definition of policy toward American Indians: “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?’”

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.”

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.”

Associated Press

President Bush speaks Friday in Beaverton, Ore. “I hope you leave here and walk out and say, ‘What did he say?’” Bush told the audience in his campaign swing through the state.

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