George W. Bush: Hooked on phonics

Speechwriters for George W. Bush must have finally gotten the memo that Bush can't pronounce certain words. A draft of his UN speech that was accidentally placed on the UN's Web site contained phonetic pronunciation keys for several foreign names, including Sarkozy "[sar-KOzee]," Mugabe "[moo-GAHbee]," Kyrgyzstan "[KEYRgeez-stan]," and Mauritania "[moor-EH-tain-ee-a]."

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino's explanation: "There was an error made in trying to make sure that interpreters had what they needed. I don't know how the draft of the speech - it was not final - was posted, but it was, and it was taken down."

Perino also said that it's "not unusual" to include phonetic spellings for various countries in the speech, but when asked if Bush has a hard time pronouncing some of those country names, Perino said, "I think that's an offensive question."

Why? Because the answer is "Yes"?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/09/bush-speech-has.html

Best quote so far about Larry Craig

Arlen Specter heartily endorsed Larry Craig's surprise return to the Capitol yesterday, declaring that "There's been a lot of favorable talk about Larry in the cloakroom."

Well, that is a step up from the men's room.

Mitt Romney was for gay rights before he was against them

Check out this flyer from Mitt Romney's 2002 gubernatorial campaign. It says, "Mitt [Romney] and Kerry [Healey, his running mate] Wish You a Great Pride Weekend! All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their sexual preference."

Yes! Mitt Romney for president!

President of the Flip Floppers Club, we mean.

Best acceptance speech ever

Last night on the Emmys, Sally Field gave the best acceptance speech ever. The only problem was, we didn't get to hear all of it. The best part was censored:

"If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any god-damned wars in the first place."

Later, in the press room backstage, Field told reporters, "I would have liked to have said more four-letter words up there. I wanted to pay homage to the mothers of the world. And I very, very seriously think that if mothers ruled the world we wouldn't be sending our children off to be slaughtered."

http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2007/09/
the-emmys-reall.html

And these are our allies?

A Pakistani poll reveals that Osama bin Laden is more popular there than both President Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally, and President Bush.

Bin Laden's approval rating: 46 percent.

Musharraf's: 38 percent.

Bush's: 9 percent.

www.americanprogressaction.org

Bush on Iraq: "We're kicking ass"

A day after the GAO reported that the Iraqis have met just 3 of 18 benchmarks they had agreed to meet, President Bush offered a slightly rosier assessment of the war during his visit to Australia. Asked by Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile how things are going in Iraq, Bush declared: "We're kicking ass."

Uh, whose ass would that be, Mr. President? Our own?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/05/kicking_ass/
index.html