# Debate #2 on Friday. Bushisms. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 9, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343 "2004-10-09T06:53:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/21 "2004-10-09T17:43:25Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > Did that line really throw you off? I thought it was very clear what he meant by it. Let me guess, you think that Bush is an illiterate and incompetent bastard because of that statement, don’t you? Actually, no, I already had come to that conclusion. Let’s see… Started a war under false pretenses (Iraq attacked us?), then changed the reason (WMD?) then changed again (wanted WMD and gaming the food for oil?). Whenever it went sour, there was the scramble to blame someone, anybody else, after disregarding his own military experts and agency reports, feeding us platitudes about steadfast resolve against the “haters of this n that” instead of the truth. Completely blowing Tora Bora when we had a chance to get Osama and diverting it all into Iraq. Pouring anti-terror (?) money into Wyoming instead of the cities that would be targets. Mishandling the “post war” Iraq and failing to secure enemy munitions? Now he is trying to spin the latest report from the CIA. Did he read it? Did he comprehend it? Doing nothing to stop the hemorage of jobs (outsource) to other countries. Trying to do away with “patient’s rights”. Claiming we need to pay more than Canada does for medicines, even if they are re-imports because terrorists will poison us (or is it because drug companies are lobbyists and donators with deep pockets). Need I go on? No comment on his bastard status, I believe his parents are married. > [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > This kind of shit goes on all the time, Bush spews a couple of statements, then folks like you go in for the kill trying to snipe phrases and rearrange quotes to make him look stupid. Granted, the man isn’t the best talker, but you’re really not the best listener either. Of course Kerry is a smooth talker, he’s a god damn lawyer for crying out loud. IMO, a lot of the best talkers are the biggest bullshitters. I feel that President Clinton demonstrated that very well. Spew is a great word for it. Really. I don’t have to make him look stupid, he does it for me. The best talker? How about one of the worst ever to besmirch the tradition of presidential debate ever? Comparing Bush to Slick Willy, well hell. Whats worse, trashing our good name worldwide over a temper tantrum and getting our troops killed by waging preemptive war “on the cheap” while Halliburton rakes in millions, or getting a blowjob in the Oval Office? > [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > I don’t really agree with Bushs policies and beliefs, but attacking his grammar and vocabulary is just so, so low. But not as low as his buddies the Swifties, or as low as Wolfowitz who in the Salon interview all but admitted that he (Wolfie) and the rest of the gang have no problem lying, in order to get their way, or Cheney saying in effect “vote for us or we’re all gonna die”. ---
**Author:** ![caphis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19adc/32.png) [@caphis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caphis)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/22 "2004-10-09T17:53:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Ok, so I’ve bullshitted a bit, but to say that there are not many internets? It sounds funny, but it is not false. When was the last time you heard the word “internet” being pluralized, before the debate? ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/23 "2004-10-09T18:21:59Z")
> [@Mockingbird](#): > > Wow. A Republican who is going off on a semantic tangent to derail a debate. > > That _never_ happens. So I come to the defense of the man on this little tidbit and I’m automatically labeled a Republican? 😕 And **caphis** , are you trying to convey that I’ve made a grammatical error, or that multple internets do not exist? ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/24 "2004-10-09T18:28:42Z")
If there is more than one internet can I move my website so I’m not on the same one as Fred Phelps and Swift Boat Veterans For Revenge? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/25 "2004-10-09T18:36:11Z")
[Libertes internets](http://perso.club-internet.fr/gregoire.seither/revue/) > [@](#): > > “Ceux qui sont prets a sacrifier un peu de liberte en echange d’un peu de securite ne meritent ni l’une ni l’autre” > (Benjamin Franklin) ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/26 "2004-10-09T18:38:50Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > So I come to the defense of the man on this little tidbit and I’m automatically labeled a Republican? > > 😕 > > And **caphis** , are you trying to convey that I’ve made a grammatical error, or that multple internets do not exist? Okay… 'you come off as a reactionary conservative twit. Does that make you feel better, bubbeleh? :wally ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/27 "2004-10-09T18:44:50Z")
Ok, I understand that there is one vast global Internet. Within the Internet, there are inter-connected networks, (ie: isolated internets). ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/28 "2004-10-09T18:46:36Z")
[Emily Litella voice] What’s this I hear about internets? Why so many? Where are they hiding? Why can’t my Internets Explorer find them? Oh. Never mind.[/Emily Litella voice] ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/29 "2004-10-09T18:52:35Z")
> [@Mockingbird](#): > > Okay… 'you come off as a reactionary conservative twit. > > Does that make you feel better, bubbeleh? > > :wally I’ll give you reactionary and maybe even twit (only because it’s the pit), but where do you get conservative? Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/30 "2004-10-09T19:46:50Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > Let me guess, you think that Bush is an illiterate and incompetent bastard because of that statement, don’t you? Actually, I’d wager his performance in these two debates did all the persuadin’ necessary. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/31 "2004-10-09T20:12:08Z")
You disagree with **Mockingbird** , therefore you are conservative. And you eat puppies. Raw. Duh. As to the wink, Adam Felber mentioned it on “Wait Wait” this morning. He figured there were going to be millions of Americans waking up this morning after watching the debate and thinking “Hold it . . . was he coming on to me?” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/32 "2004-10-09T20:13:13Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > I’m sorry, I must’ve been absent that day, is there only one internet in the world? Which do you think is more likely: 1. Bush was advised to use the term ‘Internet’ while practicing, but he’s such a stickler for technical accuracy that he insisted on the plural even though most people accept that there’s only one internet, or 2. He made a mild speaking error that sounded funny. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/33 "2004-10-09T21:37:30Z")
For Pete’s sake, everybody has slips of the tongue. What’s really damning about Bush isn’t when he misspeaks, but when he says clearly what he believes. I was glad one of the questioners asked him to name three mistakes he’d made, because I made a bet with myself that the man simply couldn’t do it. And I was pretty much right; the closest he came was saying that he’d appointed some of the wrong people – and even there, it sounded more like he was saying some of his appointees had disappointed him, rather than that he’d made bad decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/34 "2004-10-09T21:46:39Z")
That’s very true, and I wasn’t surprised that he avoided answering. Still, it’s not as out-and-out funny. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/35 "2004-10-09T21:53:18Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > I was glad one of the questioners asked him to name three mistakes he’d made, because I made a bet with myself that the man simply couldn’t do it. And I was pretty much right; the closest he came was saying that he’d appointed some of the wrong people – and even there, it sounded more like he was saying some of his appointees had disappointed him, rather than that he’d made bad decisions. The relevant snippit from part 3 of the transcript: > [@GWB](#): > > I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I’m not going to name them. I don’t want to hurt their feelings on national TV. FWIW, I got the same impression you did from how he said it - that he was disappointed in performance, not that he thought he had picked the wrong person. That doesn’t seem, at least from a literal sense, to be borne out in the purely textual sense, but then the whole thing about a televised debate is that it isn’t just about what yuo say but how you say it. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/36 "2004-10-09T22:03:30Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > Ok, I understand that there is one vast global Internet. Within the Internet, there are inter-connected networks, (ie: isolated internets). If they’re inter-connected, they aren’t exactly “isolated,” are they? ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/37 "2004-10-09T22:21:40Z")
Google fight! INTERNETS = 844,000 hits. Wow, that’s a lot. Would sort of support that the plural is a valid choice if it wasn’t for… INTERNET = 399,000,000 hits. The plural is used only one out of every 473 times. And if one looks at how the plural is used, it is usually in the technical sense of separated networks. When one talks about the general online community, the singular is used. And defending the plural use… stupid. And for overreacting to catching some verbal gaffes… um… Bush does this all the friggin time! This isn’t picking on an occasional mistake. If one is not aware of that fact… stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/38 "2004-10-09T22:31:39Z")
> [@iampunha](#): > > FWIW, I got the same impression you did from how he said it - that he was disappointed in performance, not that he thought he had picked the wrong person. That doesn’t seem, at least from a literal sense, to be borne out in the purely textual sense, but then the whole thing about a televised debate is that it isn’t just about what yuo say but how you say it. The damning thing for me was that he didn’t answer the most important part of her question, namely, > [@](#): > > Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, **and what you did to correct it.** The only wrong decisions he mentioned were appointing the wrong people, and he offered no evidence of anything he had done to correct these decisions. Indeed, he refused to take the most elementary step of naming names, for fear it would hurt feelings. The man has a phobia of responsibility. It terrifies him so much that he’s not even willing to make other members of his team take responsibility. As for the “Internets,” check out the context: > [@](#): > > I hear there’s rumors on the Internets that we’re going to have a draft. It’s extremely unlikely that he’d be referring in this scenario to the technical concept of multiple interconnected networks, especially given his lack of technical expertise. It’s far likelier that it was a simple slip of the tongue, made by somebody who’s not very tech-savvy. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/39 "2004-10-09T22:45:12Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > It’s extremely unlikely that he’d be referring in this scenario to the technical concept of multiple interconnected networks, especially given his lack of technical expertise. It’s far likelier that it was a simple slip of the tongue, made by somebody who’s not very tech-savvy. I thought he meant “internet forums.” Being an inarticulate dweeb, he presumably couldn’t retrieve the word “forum” from the dusty recesses of what passes for his brain, so a momentary confusion between trying to say “the internet” and “internet [thingies]” got blurted out as “internets.” He didn’t _really_ say “mexed missages” last time, either; he corrected himself before the words were completely out of his mouth. C’mon, the guy says enough genuinely dumb stuff without counting innocent fumble-tongues. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343/40 "2004-10-09T22:55:52Z")
Not really a “bushism”, but another poster here and a couple other places noted what struck me: the homeboy accent. Started right in talking like be was born and raised just outside of Odessa, in a simple, rural gated community till he got all wound up, and then he talked like a Type-A personality from Nowhere in Particular. Anybody else catch that? Other recovering Texans? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debate-2-on-friday-bushisms/268343.md?page=3)