[GCFL-discuss] Fw: Fwd: Can the English language survive after Bush?

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

On Wed, May 03, 2006 at 07:52:04AM -0500, Charlie wrote:
>    "The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country. "
>    - George W. Bush

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George Bush has made his share of speaking mistakes.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), most of these are
not his.

Reference http://www.snopes.com/quotes/candidate.asp

...All but one of the 2004 crop of groaners supposedly
uttered by President George W. Bush or Senator John Kerry
are statements either made by former Vice-President Dan
Quayle or ones which have for years been attributed to him:

    * "Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession
    that teach our children."

    * "We are going to have the best educated American
    people in the world."

    * "We have a firm commitment to NATO. We are part of
    NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are part
    of Europe."

    * "The future will be better tomorrow."

    * "One word sums up probably the responsibility of any
    vice president, and that one word is 'to be
    prepared.'"

    * "For NASA, space is still a high priority."

    * "[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar
    system."

    * "We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or
    may not occur."

    * "I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
    
And some are "Quayleisms"; that is, comments now widely
attributed to the former Vice-President that were actually
coined by humor writers as examples of the sort of things
he might say:

      [MAD Magazine, 1991]
      
    * "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

    * "A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer
    people going to the polls."

    * "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment.
    It's the impurities in our air and water that are
    doing it."

Only a lone entry in the 2004 Bush and Kerry lists was
anything other than a Dan Quayle utterance or a Quayleism:
"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the
country." Though it is not a word-for-word match, it is
close enough to a statement made by President George W.
Bush in 2000 to be recognizable: "More and more of our
imports come from overseas." (Although not all imports
necessarily come from "overseas," when President Bush made
this statement he was specifically referring to foreign
oil imports, even though the two largest foreign suppliers
of oil to the U.S. are the fellow North American countries
of Canada and Mexico.) 

jp

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