Saw this on boingboing:
(Noam Chomsky speaking about Bush)
So therefore you have… George Bush… this pampered kid who came from a rich family and went to prep school and an elite university. And you have to present him as an ordinary guy who makes grammatical errors, which I’m sure he’s trained to make–he didn’t talk that way at Yale–and a fake Texas twang, and he’s off to his ranch to cut brush or something. It’s like a toothpaste ad. And I think a lot of people know it.
This is the kind of thing that annoys me about Chomsky. Most of the time he is so well researched, and then other times he is so anecdotal, making vague references to non-falsifiable conspiracy theories. Does he have any proof that George Bush makes grammatical errors on purpose? Furthermore, Chomsky has been hanging out at pretty fancy institutions his entire life, hasn’t he seen the rich and privileged barely-literate idiots that go in and out of those places?
Don’t get me wrong, there is certainly an elaborate plan to sell Bush as the President that you can relate to, the President who doesn’t talk too fancy.
If there is one thing Bush is great at, even when on the spot in public, it’s completely undermining the question that was asked and either not addressing anything, or steering the dialogue toward what he wants to talk about. He performs this pretty much flawlessly.
Which makes me see Chomsky’s point more. Hmmm.
I don’t know. I ask you, Dear Reader, is Bush’s idiocy an elaborate show?
Nah, his moronic tendencies aren’t fake. You can see it in his eyes. :p He’s good at avoiding the questions “Georgie, are you on crack again?”, “Georgie, are you drunk?”… See my point? But he doesn’t have to be too good at the grammars to be a good lying bastard. He knows the truth, and he knows how to talk about anything but the truth. Just a few too many braincells got killed by his fun ole’ days to be able to put the untruth into pretty wordies.
I have a feeling Bush talked like that at Yale — and was mocked mercilessly for it.
The thing about this Chomsky peice that I think is not-so-great is he takes something about Bush that is real and problematic — his fabricated plain-folk, non-threatening image — but tries to make it into a larger issue, complicated it with things that aren’t really totally related nor confirmable.
Besides, Bush grew up in Midland, who grows up in Midland without an accent. Seriously. On top of that, John Kerry tried not to talk like he was from Massachusetts… Chomsky isn’t railing on him for that.
According to James Fallows in The Atlantic Monthly:
“This spring I watched dozens of hours’ worth of old videos of John Kerry and George W. Bush in action. But it was the hour in which Bush faced Ann Richards that I had to watch several times. The Bush on this tape was almost unrecognizable … This Bush was eloquent. He spoke quickly and easily. He rattled off complicated sentences and brought them to the right grammatical conclusions. He mishandled a word or two (”million” when he clearly meant “billion”; “stole” when he meant “sold”), but fewer than most people would in an hour’s debate. More striking, he did not pause before forcing out big words, as he so often does now, or invent mangled new ones.”
From “When George Meets John”, July/August 2004
Chomskey U R great.
This is a very interesting forum, regardless of how limited or small. I’d like to find the entire text of the Chomskey remarks on Bush. It’s gratifying to know that the heavy intellectual, academic crowd is as appauled by this gross miscarriage of democracy as I am. For my part, I find Bush totally convincing. I don’t think he’s faking any of it. He’s a genuine idiot! If he had another brain, it would be lonely! What’s sad is that he’s sadistic, arrogant and morally bankrupt. He’s a sleazy punk bully in a three-piece suite and if we get out of this mess and find real leadership, we’re going to owe the whole world an apology for the past eight years.
i really appreciate you.i think you can linuistically try to ask bush step down.
i agree with chris selby
I agree, I think ‘GW’ is as he appears, a bafoon. But this suits the people behind him, he is the one who gets asked the questions and therefore can gloss over the answers with inept, clumbersome replies.
You can listen to the entire interview in which Chomsky says this at: http://cdn2.libsyn.com/nooneslistening/n1l_show9_part3.mp3
Re Bush, there could actually be a number of factors contributing to the folksy/degenerative grammar he uses. Certainly he has been “guided” (as most politicians/personalities have been) - to act in a specific manner in public. Bush’s “hook” is that he is “one of us” - and he is no doubt encouraged to that end.
However he i getting old, he spent many years on the bottle at least, and he wouldn’t be the first republic president in recent history to have a few brain misfirings/alzheimers.. Reagan went through most of his presidency not remembering which hand to wipe his but with.
I’m an English teacher and Bush’s grammar blunders sound authentic. I think he would have to be a genuis to fake it so well. But that is an interesting point that Max Starkenburg makes after observing earlier videos of Bush in action and I can’t think of how to account for it. Are those videos available online?
Basically, I don’t think Bush is so clever but he is part of a clever political machine.
I came across an old report to Bush’s parents from the assistant principal of his school. I won’t vouch for its authenticity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
United States Grammar School Interim Report to Parents
May 25, 2004
By Nancy Greggs
Dear Mr. and Mrs. G.H.W. Bush,
Once again, it is that time of year when we update the parents of our students on their child’s progress, and we regret to inform you that your son, Georgie, is not doing as well as we’d hoped and expected when he embarked on his four-year program at our school.
As you are well aware, Georgie was installed as class president at the start of the school year, despite the fact that the majority of his fellow students did not vote for him. We foresaw problems immediately, but were assured by several school board members (who, as we understand it, are friends of your family) that this would not result in any real difficulty. Unfortunately, they have been proven wrong.
In the area of scholastic achievement, despite our best efforts, Georgie is still reading and speaking at a grade level far below our usual standards. At this point, we are not sure if his failure to learn is due to laziness and a lack of ability to apply himself to his studies, or if he simply lacks the intellectual capacity to improve in these areas.
His oral presentations to the class are particularly troubling; it is apparent that Georgie has not read the necessary materials, and he often simply fabricates facts to hide this shortcoming. In oral exams, he tends to repeat the same answers over and over, e.g. “The economy is good; jobs are on their way,” indicating a profound failure to keep up with the Current Events portion of the curriculum.
Georgie also tends to fabricate elaborate stories about himself - which, admittedly, can sometimes be very amusing. During a school celebration last May, he delighted his fellow students by coming to class in a little “flight suit” (just like the grown-ups wear!), and had everyone in stitches with his story about the family dog having eaten his report card from military pre-school!
On the whole, however, Georgie does not play well with other children. His “leadership” in the classroom continues to divide many students, one against the other. Other study groups, such as our French and German-language classes, are no longer willing to cooperate with Georgie’s group, even though they have traditionally done so in the past.
Your son also displays a lack of taking responsibility for his failings, and seems unable to appreciate the consequences of his actions. Although he was provided with the best textbooks on the subjects of the Economy, Job Creation, The Environment, et cetera, these books were damaged or completely destroyed within a matter of months. Georgie insists that he “inherited” these books in poor condition, despite all evidence to the contrary. (In fact, these same textbooks were previously used by one of our very best students, who actually returned them in better condition than he found them!)
During his first few weeks with us, Georgie quickly became part of a group of other “problem students.” Despite warnings, he has consistently befriended children whom we consider to be “bad elements,” such as Little Kenny Lay and a foreign-exchange student named Chalabi. Both of these youngsters have been expelled from other schools due to their involvement in cheating other students out of their lunch money. We feel that these kinds of relationships can only lead to no good, and hope that you will advise your child accordingly.
Georgie often displays aggressive behaviour in the schoolyard, and recently assaulted a student in another school district, completely unprovoked. When asked about this incident, Georgie insisted that the other child was armed and dangerous. When investigation into the matter proved otherwise, Georgie changed his story several times: he was just trying to “democratize” the other child, the other child’s school was harboring gang members, and so on. Quite frankly, his story on this topic has so changed from week to week, we simply can’t trust his word at all anymore.
Georgie’s friends, while not great in number, are very loyal, but tend to be over-protective. If any of the other students point out Georgie’s failing grades, these friends simply shout them down and tell them not to speak at all. When Georgie was summoned to the principal’s office several weeks ago, he insisted that his “best friend” come with him. We feel that it is in Georgie’s best interest to learn to stand up for himself; failure to do so could seriously damage his ability to handle a leadership role in his adult years.
As you are aware, final exams will be held in November, and Georgie’s past performance leads us to conclude that he will not be able to achieve the grades necessary to continue on with another four-year term at our institution.
Yours Truly,
Ms. J.Q. Public, Assistant Principal
Dave
That “report” is in fact, a satire on the first 4 years of Bush’s Presidency.