There has never been an American president who was such a master of the English language and general knowledge as George W. Bush. In this context, consider the following pearls of wisdom that have been uttered by Bush in the seven-and-a-half years that he’s been in office.
“I think war is a dangerous place,” he said.
But does this place called war feature in any atlas? Maybe the White House has had an atlas printed specially for him – one that says on various pages: “Here be war”, rather like those atlases printed in the Middle Ages which contained maps marked with statements like: “Here be dragons.”
“One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures,” he said.
He may not read the books, just as we have it by his own admission that he doesn’t read newspapers and that Condi sometimes reads them to him. But he is candid enough to admit that he sometimes looks at the pictures in books.
“You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literary test,” said Bush.
The question is: has Bush ever passed a literary test? The evidence suggests that he hasn’t. Imagine an illiterate president with his finger on the nuclear button!
“If you don’t stand for anything, you don’t stand for anything,” he said.
We are grateful to Bush for telling us this. If he hadn’t, we might never have known.
“It is clear our nation is reliant on big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas,” he said.
Could it be that back in the days when Bush began his career in the oil business, America’s oil imports DIDN”T come from overseas? Does Bush know what the word ‘imports’ means?
“There is no such thing as legacies. At least, there is a legacy, but I’ll never see it,” said Bush.
What can one say about this assertion except: “Right on, Dubya”?
And here’s another gem from Bush: “Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment.”
So if you want to know what the US’s role has been under Bush, now you know. Bombing and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the process, is all part of Bush’s plan to keep the peace from peacekeepers.
“We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile,” said Bush.
Is that what Pakistan is doing as a US ally? Being held hostile? It obviously hasn’t occurred to Bush that there is a slight difference between the meaning of the word ‘hostile’ and the word ‘hostage’.
“I thing anybody who doesn’t think I’m smart enough to handle the job is underestimating,” said Bush.
The number of people that think he certainly isn’t smart enough must run into the hundreds of millions. It might even run into the billions, as in the world’s whole population. Condi Rice, however, is rumoured to tell Bush at least once a day: “Don’t let anybody tell you you’re not smart enough, Mr President. And the smartest thing you ever did was to hire me as your National Security Adviser and later as your Secretary of State. If you hadn’t done so, who would have read the newspapers to you?”
“If the terriers and bariffs are torn down, this economy will grow,” said Bush.
The problem with this unique prescription, of course, is in finding terriers and bariffs to tear down. Terriers are a breed of dog, but what are bariffs?
“When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.”
This is state-of-the-art gobbledygook. Even Dan Quayle, who was vice-president under Bush Senior and was famous for his verbal gaffes, would have a tough time bettering the foregoing formulation.
“One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.”
They certainly do, especially if you’re a master of the English language like George W. Bush.
“There’s no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead.”
But what was the position when Bush was re-elected in November 2004? Where were the storm clouds then? Were they still on the horizon or directly overhead?
And here’s another priceless pearl of wisdom from Bush: “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”
No wonder it is said that nothing succeeds like success. By the same token, nothing fails like failure.
“First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country.”
It takes an American president with Bush’s special brand of intelligence to say that he would not accept a treaty that he himself thought made sense for the country.
Referring to the electricity crisis in California a few years ago, Bush said, “The California crunch really is the result of not enough power generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants.”
After Bush leaves office in January next year, maybe we can hire him as a consultant to WAPDA to solve Pakistan’s power crisis. Clearly, he’s the right man for the job. Even he, however, might have a tough time finding enough power to power the power of generating plants.
“I’m hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realise that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.”
Ambitious Washingtonians should be grateful to Bush for giving them a valuable lesson in the difference between success and failure.
“This administration is doing everything to end the stalemate in an efficient way. We’re making the right decision to bring the solution to an end.”
The chaos in Iraq is a classic example of this Bush doctrine. The solution there was brought to an end long ago.
“But I also made it clear (to Vladimir Putin) that it’s important to think beyond the old days of when we had the concept that if we blew each other up, the world would be safe.”
One can only hope that Putin got the message.
“I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future,” said Bush.
If Bush has been able to visit the future and make good judgments there, he must have somehow got hold of novelist H. G. Wells’ fictional time machine. “When I have been asked who caused the riots and killings in LA, my answer has been direct & simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame.
Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.”
Truer words were never spoken, even though they still didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Yes, of course, the rioters were to blame. But who were the rioters and why were they rioting? And yes, the killers were to blame. But who were the killers and why were they going around killing people? Bush had nothing to say about these questions.
And here’s a lesson in Bush-style geography: “We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO.” So far so good, but then came the truly astonishing statement: “We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.” In this formulation, Bush had somehow managed to shift the United States 3,000 miles eastward across the Atlantic Ocean and join it to Europe.
“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it,” said Bush.
One can imagine environmentalists around the world holding their heads in despair and saying, “The man’s a nut.” And here is Bush on the subject of space exploration: “Mars is essentially in the same orbit Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”
In this view, astronauts landing on Mars should be a piece of cake.
“The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century (the twentieth century). I didn’t live in this century,” said Bush.
But if Bush didn’t live in the twentieth century, would he care to tell us just which century he did live in?
“I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change,” said Bush. An irreversible trend, of course, is one that can’t be reversed. How, then, can an irreversible trend change? Again, now answer to this question was forthcoming from Bush.
“The future will be better tomorrow,” said Bush. For good measure, he added, “I stand by all my misstatements.”
For previous lecture , English lecture taught by Bush
Courtesy: THE NEWS
Kaleem Omar
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