Talk:Bushism

Hello, Ed Poor! I wanted to ask you about the examples you deleted. I understand the last one is unsourced (but easily verifiable). However, the third one ("If you want to help, give cash money to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army") had an undisputable source. Why did you delete it, exactly? -Aralin 15:06, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

Perhaps you could explain how it's a Bushism, for those of us who are a little slow? HelpJazz 16:03, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

Sure, and sorry. It is redundant, that is, more than is needed, desired or required. Repetitive, verbose, superfluous, tautologous. -Aralin 16:28, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

I know what redundant means, thanks.... Are you trying to say that it's a Bushism because he said "cash money"? That seems to be the only redundant part, and it's not exactly a made up phrase. Or am I missing something?

By the way, I agree with you on "misunderestimate;" it's easily the most famous Bushism. HelpJazz 16:36, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

Distortion

Jenkins, you have completely distorted this article. By general consensus, a Bushism is a word or a phrase misspelled or incoherently said by George W. Bush. I know he has many virtues, but he's not the Great Communicator, like President Reagan was, or at least plain spoken. -Aralin 16:46, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

...*blinks* I'm sorry, should I put back the statement that Bush stated that liberals think that every misused word is a Bushism? Or should I put back the stuff about the truth most likely being that liberals are meanie poopie heads who are biased against Bush? I'm willing to discuss, but as a disclaimer, I think Bush makes more slip-ups than most others and that it's not just liberal bias. I'm merely trying to bring the article away from pure opinion without being reverted for being too liberal.

If you tell me which section is too pro-Bush, I'll gladly help to improve it! --Jenkins 16:55, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

I give up. I guess I'll be banned before I'll say more about this. --Aralin 08:31, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

You know, the thing that makes me the most aggravated here is that I'm among the last people on this entire site to discourage open communication. I got blocked myself quite a few times now for talk page things, so trust me, we're pretty much on the same side.

As such, I'm also fairly amused that you seem to think I'm too conservative or even a Bush-lover. A short time after you made the initial post, somebody else called me a deceitful liberal.

Anyway. I'll go through the phrases I changed and explain my reasoning:

• Bushism is the term coined by liberals to refer to any word or phrase that they think is either (1) incoherent, (2) misspelled, or (3) idiotic, as stated by George W. Bush.
  • Aside from neutral word-changing to fit the flow, I only restructured it. The "as stated by GWB" at the end of the sentence gave me the impression that it refers to the statement of the sentence so far (that it's an expression coined by liberals) instead of what it should refer to (the phrases themselves).
• The implication is that Bush mangles the language significantly more than other politicians.
  • This is nothing more than highly suggestive interpretation without a source. Sort of like saying "X said Y, hoping to trick Z into doing something" while only giving a source for the "X said Y" part. I reworded it slightly to avoid the "implication is" part.
• The truth is more likely that the liberal media gleefully collect and publicize his verbal gaffes disproportionately.
  • I could have changed it to "The truth more likely is that GWB has the IQ of toast," and it would have followed the commandments exactly as much as the original sentence: Not at all. Unsourced speculation about truth, combined with bold claims and accusations that are practically impossible to prove, should generally be avoided. I replaced it with the fairly uncontroversial claim that everybody occasionally screws up, and an explanation attempt about Bush maybe being in the spotlight more often because he's... well... more often in the spotlight in general.

Yes, it's unsourced. Yes, it's still part speculation (however, the claims are not as bold as before and less controversial in my eyes). No, I wouldn't mind at all if somebody removed the entire second paragraph. As a matter of fact, I would've removed the entire paragraph myself, but I didn't want to provoke an edit war.

As far as I am aware, there is no reliable source discussing why we have the term "Bushism", but not "Putinism", "Merkelism", "Clintonism", or whatever else. If we actually enforced the "Must source stuff like that, yo!" commandment, the entire non-example part of the article (both the version we have now and the version I edited) would have to be nuked. There are sources that confirm that the term exists, and there are sources that describe what the term refers to, but that's it, from what I know. Even the "coined by liberals" part is unsourced speculation right now.

We can speculate that it's because Bush's an idiot, we can speculate that it's because the Evil Liberal Media hypes it, or we can speculate that Bush is in fact an Alien clone with a broken language module. I tried to tone done the accusation without stirring the waters too much. If you think you can do better, be my guest. I most likely won't stop you. --Jenkins 12:59, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

Thank you very much :) Aralin 14:55, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

???

Can someone please explain to me why cataloging Bush's mistakes is liberal bias and deciet, while you all have pages of mistakes that Obama makes? isn't that a bit of a double standard?

-noahH