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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
I thoroughly enjoy listening (and critiquing) the sound bytes we are flooded with through the media. Certain people do tend to have more slips, mispronunciations, malapropisms, spoonerisms, etc.
But as my wife and I were discussing it, we realized that if anyone recorded 6 hours of our speech per day, the frequent but quickly glossed over mistakes we make would make us the laughing stock of the nation. The horrible microphone forever records the slips that we might have otherwise forgotten about four seconds after it occurred.
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
I wish some of those bush fans could have stayed away in droves. how can self respecting country elect a man to be president who can say such things as these:
Well, I wasn't planning on going into politics and maybe I shouldn't because I can't even vote yet, but I feel obligated to defend against these slanders. The simple fact is that Bush is not stupid. He went to Harvard and Yale. He may have decided to extend his youth into his college years and not do well, but he had to get accepted didn't he? And about his mispronunciations: perhaps he has a slight stutter. I know one person in particular who stutters but is very eloquent in writing. I remind you that light is faster than sound.
Tell me, why would Bush, as the governor of Texas, have any reason to know who the prime minister of Pakistan is? He was elected (with 70% of the vote for his second term, might I add) to deal with state affairs, not foreign ones. He had good relations with the president of mexico, which is all that matters for him. Also, Bush would bring Cheney and Colin Powell to the White House, his foreign policy would not be lacking. We elect a group of people rather than one man.
God save Florida from choosing a lying pompous scum-bag who can't even win his own "home" state. Al Gore may not have invented the Internet, but Clinton/Gore had [u]nothing[/u] to do with the economy.
Excuse me for any anger this may have caused, but politics is one of my strong interests. Appropriately, I will be in Washington, DC on a senior class trip for the next three days.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>The simple fact is that Bush is not stupid. He went to Harvard and Yale. He may have decided to extend his youth into his college years and not do well, but he had to get accepted didn't he?
Prince Charles went to Gordonstone and Cambridge but that doesn't make him clever. He had to get accepted but it's a bit tricky to turn down the Queen's son. I don't suppose Chelsea Clinton had to spend too much time trawling round second rate universities to get a place.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>if anyone recorded 6 hours of our speech per day
True indeed. I might be encouraged to do a little better if I were spending sixty million dollars (as I believe some Senators, including Hilary Clinton, did) on my campaign, let alone the order of 0000s that is spent on a Presidential campaign.
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
I enjoyed your post, Jazz, nice to hear from the other side. If I may make so bold, what sometimes perturbs non-US citzens, is the degree to which well-educated, intelligent, and politicaly active Americans can be very insular in their outlook. Like it or not, the US pretty much calls the shots on the world stage, which means that the rest of the world tends to hope that the most visible face of US foreign policy will have some awareness that there is a world outside North America, however irrelevant that fact seems to most US citizens most of the time. I agree that having a skilled team of advisors will no doubt help, but it is the perception, not so much of ignorance, as of indifference ("I don't know, but so what?") that seems to cause most concern among many outside the US. To give an amusing example: When GW's Dad was CinC, he visited Australia during a time of tension between those two countries over trade in beef. As his motorcade sped through Sydney streets, past crowds of protesters, Mr Bush gave what he thought was the "V for Victory" or "Peace" gesture. Unfortunately, none of his advisors had told him that he was "giving them the fingers" in Australian usage. It was an amusing illustration of how cultural misconceptions can exacerbate difficult situations, and insularity does not help lessen the likelihood of such incidents.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 347 |
>Also, Bush would bring Cheney and Colin Powell to the White House, his foreign policy would not be lacking. We elect a group of people rather than one man.One would hope that a US President would have a reasonable grasp of all subjects that the government administration has to deal with. If, instead, the President is happy to delegate all knowledge to specialists within his team, the only job left for him is to front the TV cameras and smile. In which case a B-grade movie actor could probably do the job. 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>In which case a B-grade movie actor could probably do the job.
I think you need a reality check Marty - quite a preposterous statement!
Mind you, with Glenda Jackson in parliament we could even get an "A" grade actor as our Prime Minister!
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197
member
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member
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 197 |
Tell me, why would Bush, as the governor of Texas, have any reason to know who the prime minister of Pakistan is? Jazz, I would like to point something out. Perhaps the governor of Texas has no need for such things. I certainly can't tell you who most of the world leaders are, but I'm not running for president. We're not having an election for Governor of Texas here, we're talking about the President of the United States!!!!! This man will be more than just a leader of our country. He will be making decisions that affect world politics and economics for the next four years at least. Now do we want a man to go to some international peace talk in the Middle East without knowing who the people he's going to be talking to are? I heard him say once about someone who had just resigned (again, I don't remember the name or the exact situation, but it's not me running for president..) something to the effect of 'Good, that's one less difficult name for me to remember.' That's not really an attitude that I want one of the strongest leaders of the free world to propagate. As to his intelligence, I didn't exactly say he was stupid. (or if I did, I did so out of frustration and anger. if i said any such thing, i apologize) He may be highly intelligent. I believe Napoleon was a genius but I don't want him running my country. And I certainly know that I used no such term as a lying pompous scum-bag. Tennessee, for your information, is a fairly conservative state. It surprises me not in the least that Bush won that state. (may I remind you that I spent the first 18 years of my life in Tennessee) By chance, Gore came from there, but I wouldn't necessarily call him indicative of the native population, at least of the half of the state that I am most familiar with.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,004 |
...I had done that law degree my parents urged on me - I could help fight that lawsuit about the wonky ballot papers, that, some claim, made them vote for Buchanan instead of Gore! For Jazzo - here's a url (so as to keep the mess off this board), that kind of outlines my position on this (as an interested observer, you understand). And, no - I'm afraid I don't really agree with your position (though when I was 18, I might have done - ohmigod, I'm turning into my parents!!!) http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb541827&MyNum=973674111&P=Yes&TL=973576651
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