AcidKid, try to keep up. The issue about ‘overseas’ is this:
The actual Bush quote is more along the line of "“more and more of our imports come from overseas.”
It’s not outrageous, especially considering where we get our oil and the whole NAFTA issue.
Saudi oil is ‘overseas’ and doesn’t do squat for North American Trade.
AcidKid, I might have missed where you were coming from.
Sorry to be a grammar nazi, but it’s could have, not could of.
Sorry. This isn’t the appropriate place for this, but that really bugs me.
Provided by hawthorne:
On the face of it “imports …from overseas” seems funny; but is it? As you pointed out most of US oil imports come from Canada. So in that light his statement makes perfect sense. (And therefore its inclusion in Bushisms lists is disingenious.) There is of course the use of the term “foreign”. Canada is, well, foreign. But are the companies that do the importing foreign? Could the term “big foreign oil” refer to big foreign oil companies. That would explain the use of the word “big”.
jjim, You’d think I would have learned that after the first correction. Feel free to point it out until I have .
I’d just like to say that its good to see teachers foisting their politics on their students. Always good to see such objectivity at work.
:smack: My lord. I was thinking “governorship”, but for some reason I wrote “senator”.
Anyway, the list just put up on snopes isn’t the one I’m thinking of, and I’m still searching.
Yes, but it doesn’t shed a great deal of light on the issue. Here are the relevant quoations from the articles i found:
As you can see, none of these sources really gives the quotation in its full context. Interestingly, many of the papers are from overseas, and none of the big US newspapers seem to have covered the blunder at the time - the New York Times, LA Times, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune etc., etc. are conspicuous by their absence.
Some of these papers did use the quote much later on, but i was mainly interested in instances close to the time of the speech itself, which apparently took place on 25 September 2000.
Note that The Economist actually cites the Slate website as the source. Not exactly great investigative journalism.
But, for those who think that the whole thing is a myth, i offer you the following:
I have the Bushism-a-day calendar, and it’s the source of endless mirth and worry.
For the record, today’s page is:
cited as “Spoken in Austin, TX” on December 8, 2000.
I really like the one for my birthday, June 26th. The quote is, “Putting Education First.” The citation says, “The presidential candidate’s web site gave a priority ranking to important issues of concern to the governor. ‘Putting Education First’ was ranked number 3 on the list.”
Sorry, can’t resist in a thread devoted to errors of grammar and usage:
There is no such word as “disingenious.”
I think you were looking for “disingenuous.”
Which quotation, Shodan?
If you’re referrring to the 'imports from overseas" line, that is actually attributed to GWB on the link you gave.
YEP, IT WOULD BE NICE IF THE PRIORITIES WERE SUCH THAT EDUCATION COULD BE FIRST. But then we would not be working on PUTTING it first, it WOULD be first.
mhendo, thanks for the information. I know it’s expensive. Your observation of The Economist doesn’t suprise me, being a fan of The Daily Howler. And I wouldn’t use Bush as a reliable source of what Bush said in light of his remarks about hitting the Trifecta which was really something that Gore said.
So until we have a text of the speech, what with Philster’s information, I’d have to conclude it was not a gaffe.
About the misspelling, Dang! Guess I’ll just have to compose in Word Pro and then post. I use my Opera Google search bar as a quick spell check for the obvious and anyway, I was defending Bush here. Hey Admins, how 'bout a spell checker instead of those cute smilies?
It doesn’t cost me anything. Well, not directly, anyway. I’m a grad student, and my university library subscribes to Lexis/Nexis. We can use our student ID numbers and passwords to access all the subscribed databases from home.
We are not going to have a political discussion here. We are simply going to identify whether such and such a thing was said by Bush, and whether the statement might make sense when put in context.
For the record, at the time Bush made the statement about “overseas” oil, the portion of imported oil coming to the United States from non-North or South American countries was decreasing slightly. Then it ticked up as new production came on in the North Sea and off Nigeria, then back down as a new pipeline from Canada opened and Venezuela increased production. It recently shot up as a result of the Venezuelan oil strike.
How about long term? Are more and more imports coming from overseas?
Sorry about the link - now I can’t find the one I wanted. I guess I don’t have a cite, then.
As others have said, more or less, forget the nitpicking over the precise details of one comment. You need to view the broad picture: see www.bushisms.com. It is thoroughly documented, and terrifying, that the elected leader of the most powerful nation on Earth can’t come out with coherent English. What are the possibilities? #1 He 's mentally fogged, therefore shouldn’t be in the job. #2 He’s mentally fine, but has some problem of communication/education that makes him incapable of communicating his intentions clearly. Likewise, he shouldn’t be in the job.
I would pick number 2, kind of. He seems to be just a bad public speaker. In private, around his family and the cabinet, he’s probably fine.
Any quote attributed to Bush should be taken lightly and with scepticism. I have heard quotes attributed to him that were also attributed to Al Gore and Dan Quayle, though the “overseas imports” question appears to have been settled.