on the trail
W was in Davenport today, reading from a script to a hall full of supporters. I'm hoping to get the transcript tomorrow in the paper, but in the meantime, a couple of quick observations, since the local stations carried it in its entirety:
Bush mispronounced the name of Jim Leach's wife, Deba. (dee-ba) Leach is not the local congressman anymore, but he's been in Congress for a long time, and is still popular here. Bush called her Deb.
Also, he made some bizarre comment about how he could think of no one better to mow the White House lawn (?!) than Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. I'm relatively certain that this wasn't a lame attempt at a pun, that somehow this was intended as a compliment. Ummm. Thank goodness we've got Iowans to do the yard work? What?!
Yeah, I know this is nitpicky, but honestly, he was reading from a script, beaming over talking points that are old news at best, so it's not like there was much to really engage with. I know that he's basically just preaching to the base at this point, but really. The best he can do is to mispronounce one person's name and deliver a dumbass remark about lawn-mowing? Geez. I was a little surprised that he didn't start with "It's great to be back in insert name here!"
I thought for a minute about trying to get a ticket, but then I can't imagine that my "Nine more days! Nine more days!" chant would have gone over especially well...
Comments
But Kerry went to Wisc. and called Lambeau Field, "Lambert Field," then went on to call the Bratwurst short-a "brats." Then said "Go Buckeyes" at a stop in Michigan. Geez, I'm worried.
[All of my insights are a credit to this Slate.com piece.]
Posted by: Derek | October 26, 2004 9:28 AM
Yeah, I read about two of those in Sports Illustrated. And you're right. Slips are not the exclusive property of the Reps...
cgb
Posted by: collin | October 26, 2004 12:39 PM
Kerry has made mistakes on pronounciation and the like, Bush however makes mistakes like inverting the positives and negatives in his stump speeches. "We will not have an all volunteer army."
I'm still one of those people that says that we should be shooting for the best among us to be President and, although our current system doesn't allow for that to happen very often, we should be able to pick the person that can at least speak in a semi-literate manner. 4 years of Bush have desensitized us to his inarticulate speech, but I am one of those people that believe it shouldn't have.
And I think that is why Kerry is percieved to have done so well in the debates: not because his answers were far away better or worse than Bush's, but because we'd all gotten used to the way the President speaks, and suddenly the country went "Wait, this man sounds like an adult. Hmm... that seems vaguely familiar."
Posted by: Dylan | October 26, 2004 3:16 PM
Oh, but the entertainment factor alone would have been well worth the ticket.
Posted by: Jodie | October 26, 2004 5:25 PM