http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10472.htmlBush has ‘other words’
Posted 4:25 pm |
For all of the president’s problems with grammar, language, pronunciation, and extemporaneous speaking, he’s occasionally decent on the stump. No one will ever label Bush the Great Communicator, but if you hand him something to read, and put it on a teleprompter, he can usually impress a sympathetic crowd and get by without embarrassing himself.
But once in a while, something goes wrong. This morning, for example, the president delivered a speech on funding the war in Iraq before American Legion Post 177 in a DC suburb in Virginia. Maybe there was a problem with the teleprompter, or maybe the president decided he’d wing it, but one need not have been on the stage with the president to know that he wasn’t sticking to a prepared text. See if you can spot Bush’s verbal tic.
“In other words, we don’t have the luxury of hoping for the best, of sitting back and being passive in the face of this threat…. And in the face of the violence — in other words, there was reprisal, people said, we’re going to get even, how dare these people do this — and in the face of this violence, I had a choice to make.”
“In other words, the lack of security would have created an opportunity for extremists to move in…. In sending more troops — in other words, in sending troops in, it is — I recognize that this is more than a military mission.”
“A little less than half of — only about half of the reinforcements that he’s asked for have arrived. In other words, this operation is just getting started….. Our troops are also training Iraqis. In other words, part of the effort is not only to provide security to neighborhoods, but we’re constantly training Iraqis so that they can do this job.”
“In other words, slowly but surely these extremists are being brought to justice by Iraqis, with our help…. In other words, there are consequences for delaying this money…. I tried to put this war into a historical context for them. In other words, I told them that they’re laying the foundation of peace. In other words, the work we’re doing today really will yield peace for a generation to come.”
“In other words, it matters what happens in distant lands.”
There were 13 in all. The speech was only a half-hour.
Of course, for those of you interested in more substantive concerns, Bush’s speech wasn’t just awkward and repetitious, it was also wrong.
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