Still More George W. Bushisms Neither in French, Nor in English, Nor in Mexican

Introduction This year, Bushisms went global. As the ramp up to the Gulf War accelerated through the summer and fall of 2002, our syntactically challenged president did nothing to disguise his disdain for the views of those countries known in his father's day as "the allies." The nations of Europe responded to this insult in kind -- by buying my book.In the United States, this series has attempted to bridge the divide between Bush detractors (who laugh at him) and Bush supporters (who can laugh with him). All remain welcome. But there's no hiding that the recent vogue for Bushisms in ol' Europe is primarily an expression of hostility toward Bush II and Gulf War II. Having been informed just how little their opinions matter inside the White House, members of the European Community comfort themselves with the notion that its current occupant is -- let us not mince words -- a semiliterate moron.That is not to say that the world scorns Bush in a uniform manner. Though the feeling that Bush is a fool is common throughout Europe, the cadences vary from country to country. In Great Britain, where Bushisms supply fodder for a seemingly endless number of newspaper columnists, the notion of an American leader who lacks fluency in English is taken as vastly amusing. The British see Bush as a hip-shooting cowboy, but somehow a comic one -- Dr. Strangelove, yes, but with some Bart Simpson thrown in. Having survived the Reagan-Thatcher romance, they are not unduly alarmed.The French, by comparison, seethe. They takele president americainfor a corporate lackey, an ignorant imperialist, and a Texan religious fanatic. And they blame all of us for hiring him. In this joyless spirit, a well-known French publisher agreed to buy the translation rights toGeorge W. Bushisms, then phoned back to say he would not be offering payment after all, as he had found the same material for free on an American website (mine!). I have been filling Evian bottles with tap water ever since and serving it to my guests. So far, no one has noticed any difference.As for the Germans, they appear alternately amused and horrified.Voll daneben, Mr. President! (Well Said, Mr. President)presents itself as both a joke book and a conclusive indictment. During the war, it shared Deutsch bestseller status with Bob Woodward'sAmerika im Krieg (Bush at War), which presumably sold to more Rumsfeld-friendly readers. Much as I appreciate the sales, there is something intrinsically hilarious about translating these nuggets -- and even more hilarious about rendering them into German. Most read as if unsuccessfully translated from German in the first place. Which really came first: "Meine Aussenpolitik wird ausgewogen sein" or "I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy"?All of these Bushisms are previously uncollected, but in a break with previous practice, not all of them are new -- uttered in the past year. While pulling together a 2004 George W. Bushisms Calendar (available near the bookstore table where you are Frenchily reading this without intending to buy), my helper David Newman unearthed some older gems that somehow evaded previous anthologizing.This ongoing project has given me a paradoxical interest in both Bush bashing (foreign sales!) and Bush's reelection (volumes IV, V, and VI!). I continue to ignore such incentives and simply offer up what I find.Jacob WeisbergAugust 2003 Copyright 2003 by Jacob Weisberg Foreword by Al FrankenAlong with a whole pack of other journalists, Jacob Weisberg covered Governor George W. Bush during the long months of the 2000 presidential campaign. Every single one of those journalists heard Bush make one stupid remark after another, day after day:"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.""Families is where our nation finds hope, where wingWeisberg, Jacob is the author of 'Still More George W. Bushisms Neither in French, Nor in English, Nor in Mexican', published 2003 under ISBN 9780743251006 and ISBN 0743251008.