The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!: What Did He Not Say Now?

What Did He Not Say Now?

The Bush administration receives more than a little public scrutiny for how poorly they communicate. As a result, pundits have wondered aloud whether he's "an idiot", major media have pondered the "bubble" in which he seems to be hermetically sealed, and bloggers...well, let's not even go there. To say he is aloof and poor-spoken is charitable in the extreme.

You'd think that by year six, he'd have learned a thing or two about communicating and its impact on the public's perception of him.

You'd think, but you'd be wrong.

Our Malaprop-in-Chief is forever trying to change the definition of words, parse them with the penchant of Bill Clinton defining is, or just deny he ever said them - despite voluminous videotape footage to the contrary.

After three years of repeating the mantra, "stay the course", he's now denying he ever said it. He followed a similar course with connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda and a host of other topics. Other members of his administration - most notably The Big Dick, who still claims a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and Donald Rumsfeld who is a veritable Noah Webster when it comes to redefining words and phrases - do the same.

The man obviously thinks the American public is as dim-witted as he - a proposition I'd say has some merit actually. Or, he's simply so arrogant that he believes, "if the President says it, it must be true." Either way, he Quixotically pursues his revision of English in the same single-minded fashion as an idiot savant with a language obsession. "Terror...t...e...r...r...o...r, terror" he mumbles like a real-life Rainman with a mouthful of cud.

His legacy will be less than impressive in most every way. Future generations will remember him as they pay off the debt he foisted on them. Aggrieved military families will reflect on the empty chairs at the Thanksgiving table. And, Constitutional scholars will marvel at his corrosive influence on the Bill of Rights - "what were those people thinking when they let him get away with that?"

At best, he'll have a reputation commensurate with Dan "Mr. Potatoe-Head" Quayle, another of history's walking malaprops. But there will be a difference between George and Dan. Quayle was simply a none-to-bright Veep, who despite his idiocy was in no position to do real and lasting harm. George, on the other hand, is in the preeminent position to muck up the works on a grand scale - a man gifted with the talent and vision to be one of history's leading dunderheads.

Our only hope is that one day soon, he'll amend his title from President to ex-President. I, for one, could get behind a revision like that and it can come none too soon.

It certainly would be nice to believe that a simple misspoken word could change the course of history for the better. Lord knows, plenty of other misspoken words have changed the world just as much - for the worse.