"Bushisms" joke
It took four years from the time George Herbert Walker Bush became President in 1988 for him to generate enough examples of his legendary verbal confusion to justify publishing a book of "Bushisms".
His son took 22 days. President Bush's murder of meaning seems to occur almost daily and has spoiled followers of verbal obfuscation for choice. Among recent highlights of his ability to baffle, bemuse and entertain have been:
"I understand small business growth. I was one."
"I know that the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully."
"There's no such thing as legacies. At least, there is a legacy, but I'll never see it."
"Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment."
"I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning."
"I hope the ambitious realise that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure."
"Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighbourhoods."
"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
Even before his inauguration, Mr Bush had pushed back the boundaries of understanding, said Jacob Weisberg, political writer of Slate magazine and editor of George W Bushisms.
"I think it would be a tremendous shame not to have a complete record of this marvellous facility that our President has," he said.
Many in Washington think that, unlike his father, whose linguistic pirouettes undermined a reputation as an intelligent man, the new President gains humanity from his slip-ups. Or as Mr Bush himself has said of his critics: "They misunderestimated me."
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