English Lectures taught by Bush

The world according to Dubya

By Kaleem Omar

One finds it hard to believe that in another few months the United States of America will have a president whose nickname isn't Dubya. God knows who gave George W Bush that nickname, but it certainly fits his statements as president down to a T. Only somebody named Dubya could say (as he did on one memorable occasion): "I stand by all my misstatements."

He thinks Africa is a country. "Countries like Africa have a lot of diseases," he once said. If George Bush Senior had a problem with 'the vision thing', his son, George W Bush, has a problem with pretty nearly everything -- the past, the present, the future, history, geography, you name it.

In particular, he has a problem with the English language. He's okay when he's memorised a speech written for him by others, or when he's reading a speech from cue cards or a teleprompter. The trouble arises when he is trapped into making off-the-cuff remarks.

Speaking at a rally in Washington on September 19, 2002, Bush Junior said: "People say, how can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil? You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."

One very much doubts, however, that people in America are actually going around asking: "How can I fight evil?" It sounds like something out of the world of comic books. But then, that may be well be the world that Bush inhabits, judging from some of his more bizarre utterances. Maybe, after he ceases to be President of the United States, he can apply for the job of president of Marvel Comic Books, Inc. And what's a 'shut-in's house' for Pete's sake?

Speaking at a Republican rally in Davenport, Iowa, a few years ago, Bush said: "I'm plowed (sic) of the leadership of Chuck Grassley and Greg Ganske and Jim Leach." Messrs Grassley, Ganske and Leach would probably say that they're 'plowed' of Bush's leadership too.

Bush being 'plowed' of their leadership opens up a whole new line of thought. For what we may now see is a whole bunch of familiar quotes having to be modified -- as in, for instance, "Plide goeth before the fall" and "Death be not plowed." Could Bush be Chinese, by any chance? Is that why he has trouble pronouncing the letter 'r'?

Be that as it may, Dubya really hit his stride during a speech in Nashville, Tennessee, when he said: "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again. Oh, yeah!"

He gave the game away, though, when he said at a rally in South Bend, Indiana: "There's no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world's worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons."

Not "shouldn't allow", mind you, but "should allow". And then people wonder why Bush's case for a war against Iraq didn't make much headway at the United Nations Security Council back in March 2003.

In a speech to students in Little Rock, Arkansas, Bush said: "If you don't have any ambitions, the minimum-wage job isn't going to get you to where you want to get, for example. In other words, what is your ambitions? (sic) And oh, by the way, if that is your ambition, here's what it's going to take to achieve it." If you can make any sense of this, you're a better man than I am. Bush, however, would probably say it's all as clear as mud.

Over, now, to Oklahoma City -- the site of the worst terrorist attack in the United States before the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. Speaking at a rally, Bush said: "See, we love -- we love freedom. That's what they didn't understand. They hate things; we love things. They act out of hatred; we don't seek revenge, we seek justice out of love."

Are we to take it from this that the United States has been bombing Afghanistan for the past six-and-a-half years out of 'love' for the Afghani people? And has it been bombing Iraq for five years out of 'love' for the Iraqi people?

Bush spends more time at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, than he does at the White House. When he's at his ranch, he keeps himself busy chopping wood, clearing brush, jogging several miles a day in the afternoon sun, riding his mountain bike (or should one say, falling off his mountain bike?) and doing other tough-guy things -- as befits the leader of the world's only superpower.

And this is what he told reporters in Crawford on August 21, 2002, with a grinning then-US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld at his side: "Nothing Saddam has done has convinced me -- I'm confident the Secretary of Defence -- that he is the kind of fellow that is willing to forgo weapons of mass destruction, is willing to be a peaceful neighbour, that is -- will honour the people -- the Iraqi people of all stripes, will -- values human life."

The question is: was Rumsfeld grinning at Bush's unique brand of gobbledygook, or was he grinning at the thought that US forces would soon be bombing Iraq and killing tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians in the process? But what was the Bush administration doing before the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon?

Here's what Dubya had to say on the subject on August 21, 2001: "One of the interesting initiatives we've taken in Washington, DC, is we've got these vampire-busting devices. A vampire is a -- a cell deal you can plug in the wall to charge your cell phone."

Bush was governor of Texas before he became president of the United States. Here are a couple of classic quotes from his gubernatorial days: "One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'." (I make that three words, but who's counting?) "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." Right!