32 posts tagged “george w. bush”

No, these photos do not form a theme. Just some totally random shots around Wellington during the last few weeks. With the borrowed dongle I was able to get most of them off my phone.

Bushell's Master Roast trial bottles '87

Tree-clearing chopper in the distance

George W. Bush playing cards

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Boulcott Street construction site

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Mt Victoria Tunnel heading east

I rather liked Craig Ferguson’s jokes at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. It was a shame that his fellow media colleagues didn’t know a good laugh when they heard it.
   I have found this with political humour in the United States. I have had political jokes fall well flat, and this is due to the politeness of Americans. Democrats don’t want to offend Republicans in the audience, and Republicans don’t want to offend Democrats in the audience. Net result: little laughter.
   The only times one can get a bit more extreme is in areas which are staunchly one way or another (e.g. then-Sen. Obama at the DNC and Gov. Palin at the RNC).
   He dissed The New York Times as much as Fox News, Vice-President Cheney as much as Sen. Clinton, Bill O’Reilly as much as Keith Olbermann, and he even had a go with the media in general. However, I loved his closing which was a great way to bring everyone together. Also notice that Mr Ferguson got a standing ovation.

This is an oldie, but one of the lasting humour items about the Bush administration, inspired by the Abbott and Costello routine. It is becoming harder to find on YouTube now that the former president is back in Texas.

Some thought W. was a great comedian. Others thought he made light of some real tragedies. Below are two videos from his various press dinners, which are either very funny or very sick, depending on your point of view.
   The one where the former president appears with Steve Bridges is interesting. No doubt the White House had approved the things Mr Bridges said. One wonders how many were truly the President’s thoughts.

Where were the Secret Service guys when Muntadhar al-Zaidi’s shoes came flying toward President Bush yesterday? What if it were a grenade? And now, of course, those who do want to pop the President off know just how the Service will react if a projectile were aimed at him.
   They also know that Dubya has pretty good reactions for a sexagenarian.
   And his wit’s still there: ‘That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know.’ Good recovery. On a par with Billy Crystal and the Jack Palance ad libs that year at the Oscars, at least as far as politics are concerned.
   I might not agree with your world-view, but, Mr President, I am pretty sure I would have taken a shoe for you.

Laura and George W. Bush condemn violence in Mumbai; White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

Holidays are often good times to have radio programmes—I remember this was the case on Labour Day as I drove around the South Island one year. Story Corps, on NPR on Thanksgiving Day, did the same for Americans who were listening, though these days you can get the programme online as well, with a very human interview with President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.
   In Parliament, the questions given to an MP introducing a bill are called Dorothy Dix questions—these are very easy ones that are kind of like a Q&A to ease the Member into the proceedings. The ones in the audio file are Dorothy Koch questions—still pretty easy ones, and the President and First Lady are at ease, because the interviewer is the President’s sister, Doro Bush Koch. Notice there are no awkward pauses or misplaced words, which I have always said is not often part of the President’s usual speech. Yes, he makes mistakes, and yes, he is a poorer public speaker than his successor. However, for anyone who has ever listened to President Bush give a speech overseas, he tends to be incredibly fluent. He saves the hokey mistakes for home. This is the man who was once criticized for being too smart by his opponent when he ran for Congress in the late 1970s. You sure didn’t see Sen. John Kerry make the same accusation in 2004.
   One thing I have noticed with the Bush family, regardless of whether it was 41 or 43 in the White House, is that the presidency is regarded as a separate entity. Hence, “work George” is called, even by his family, as ‘the President’, ‘Mr President’ or ‘President Bush’. The first name is reserved for the non-work personality. In the NPR interview, Mrs Koch does call her brother ‘Mr President,’ which I imagine is the proper thing to do to preserve the institution of the presidency. You know, if I ever got into a position like that, I could never insist on that formality. Certainly not from your own sister. But from an American point of view, this is the man who assents to bills—a function that HM the Queen has here.
   The references to being able to see one another refer to the fact that the Kochs live in Maryland. After January 20, the Bushes will return to Texas, I imagine. I thought it was entertaining to hear the Bushes in a relaxed mode, as the President looks forward to his post-presidential career. While observers say he will not be as active in the Clinton mould, I think he will find causes he is passionate about and be involved in them. And I also believe he will be very welcome—his opponents will enjoy the fact he is not calling the shots and embrace his new role, while his supporters will see his next stage as a way to stay in touch with his philosophy and thoughts.

I’m not sure if you can do this sign in the US, but in New Zealand, you can with our sense of humour: it’s at the New Orleans bar (formerly Paris), on Lambton Quay, Wellington. Two of the staff are Frenchmen so we chatted more about the fact that Orléans is a French town. You can even do a President Bush impersonation and say, ‘I see the reconstruction’s fine, and you don’t need my help,’ and not get nasty glances.

New Orleans blackboard

   This one at Get Funk’d might be more universal though:

Get Funk’d blackboard

We never found out if she did get fired.
   However, I did not know what to do with this one at the National Bank on Manners Street, Wellington:

Modern segregation

The first time I was not sure about this. I thought it was some modern form of segregation. I went to the regular queue with them white and brown folk. When I got to the teller, I asked him if the bank expected Kazakhs, Iranians, Indians and Asiatic Russians to go with the ‘Asian Banking’ sign. He was a bit humourless and it went over his head. But he did tell me that the staff were multilingual or spoke different dialects as I noted I did not speak Mandarin. I was welcome to go there next time.
   The second time I put this to the test. I figured that if the National Bank wanted all Asians—if you are one of the group descended from or related to the 3·7 billion from Asia—to turn right and not left, and segregate us, I would go along with it. Plus the teller from the time before said the staff were multilingual. I went to ask if any of the Chinese staff (I did not see any Japanese, Kazakhs, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or any others) if they spoke Cantonese. They did not. Therefore, I went to queue up with the regular folk.
   The Mandarin-speaking woman working there did come to ask if she could help me. I said I wanted a cheque cashed. She said I was in the right queue. I remarked that I was just following the signs about segregation because I didn’t want to go all Rosa Parks-on-the-bus on them. (And the last time whites pulled this stunt with Chinese we got so pissed off that we brought down the Ching Dynasty in 1911, so bringing down a single bank is not too hard.)
   This time, my teller was (probably locally born) Chinese and could appreciate the nuances. She, like me, thought it was inappropriate for Chinese to be grouped with 3·7 billion people on the Asian continent. And we had very little in common with, say, the fictional Borat, who is from Asia. Or Emperor Hirohito. Or Gandhi. Or my friend Merrill Fernando who sells tea on TV.
   She said I was the first customer to have interpreted the sign as requesting Asians go to a separate part of the bank but she would raise it with the manager. I said that even the Chinese writing said ‘Asian banking’. But I still do not know what the sign means: clearly all ‘Asians’ cannot be assisted because there are only Mandarin-speaking staff in that section of the bank. Clearly there, the services are specialized and regular banking is still with the regular tellers. This was deceptive advertising.
   I am so glad I have closed the majority of our ANZ–National–Post Office Savings Bank–Countrywide–whatever-else-was-merged accounts. I don’t understand this lack of logic and it demonstrates a massive absence of cultural awareness. (As a non-customer it is a great thing to have a laugh about and I hope they will leave it up as a relic!)
   So they want Asians in another part of the bank but they don’t. And they can’t serve any Asians anyway unless you speak Mandarin, which is about 28 per cent of all Asians, but it’s pretty sweeping and arrogant to say all Asians should go that way. I do not know of any Chinese who would not find this sign either insulting, humorous, or stupid, which are probably three qualities that the National Bank wishes to convey. And I bet every other Asian, say folks from Tajikistan or Azerbaijan or Vietnam or India, are wondering why they can’t get served in that section or why their languages aren’t included on the sign or by the Chinese staff.
   The sign should read, in Chinese, ‘Specialized services for Mandarin-speaking customers’ which, believe it or not, would fit into the space they have anyway, and is probably what the bank means.
   Congratulations, National Bank, you’re stupid in two languages. Which is better than being stupid in three:

Large Black Coffee from "Role Models"

What was President George W. Bush’s most memorable quotation? I can think of the following for his predecessors in my lifetime and they stand out most for me:

‘I am not a crook.’—Richard Nixon
‘Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men.’—Gerald Ford
‘I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.’—Jimmy Carter
‘It’s morning in America!’ and ‘Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’—Ronald Reagan
‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’—George Bush (admittedly before his presidency, but probably his most famous quotation)
‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman.’—Bill Clinton

   For Dubya, there are a few to pick from but I am not sure if any stand out:

‘Make the pie higher.’
‘They misunderestimate me.’
‘I am a pit bull on the pant-leg of opportunity.’
‘We had a roundtable meeting, at a square table.’
‘And this year, Gregory, don’t steal the silverware.’
‘It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.’
‘Will the highways of the internet become more few?’
‘I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.’
‘George Washington, or as I call him, the first George W.’
‘Mandela’s dead. Because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.’
‘The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell.’
‘Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called “walking”.’
‘Sen. Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.’
‘In Texas, we have an expression for that: “Wanted: dead or alive.”’ (Variation: ‘I want justice. There’s an old poster out west that said, “Wanted, dead or alive.”’)

Suggestions welcome in the comments.

GinBaby and I were chatting about invented words, such as President Bush’s misunderestimate, which, of course, means to underestimate by the wrong amount. Or it could mean that. And many may call him a dumbass, but the President is following a great presidential tradition of inventing or popularizing words, according to PBS. Etymology shows that this is nothing new, and George W. Bush may have earned himself entries alongside George Washington (whom he calls, ‘The first George W.’) and Thomas Jefferson. The PBS list:

The President may be remembered then, inter alia, as a linguist.