The New English by Resident Bush

In all of the election debates in 2000 I noticed that George W. Bush repeatedly made a fundamental English language error. Al Gore didn't make any mistakes as far as I could tell.

• 2000 Oct 3, First Debate. Note inconsistent transcripts.

  • www.debates.org, CNN: "There's differences."
    
    No, that should be "There are differences."

  • www.debates.org: "The first is, the difference is there is no new accountability measures in Vice President Gore's plan."
    CNN: Well, the first is -- the difference is, there is no new accountability measures in Vice President Gore's plan."
    
    No, that should be "... there are no new accountability measures ..."

• 2000 Oct 11, Second Debate.

  • www.debates.org, CNN: "There's too many issues left unresolved."
    
    No, that should be "There are ..."

• 2000 Oct 17, Third Debate. Note inconsistent transcripts.

  • CNN: "So I think step one to make sure prescription drugs is more affordable for seniors -- and those are the folks who really rely upon prescription drugs a lot these days -- is to reform the Medicare system, is to have prescription drugs as an integral part of Medicare once and for all."
    www.debates.org: "I think step one to make sure prescription drugs is more affordable for seniors, those are the folks who really rely upon prescription drugs allot these days is to reform the Medicare system. Have prescription drugs as an integral part of Medicare once and for all.
    
    No, that should be "drugs are ..." (Note that the second use of "is" shifted the meaning.)

  • CNN: "You bet there's things the government can do."
    www.debates.org: You bet there's things that government can do.
    
    No, that should be "there are ..."

• (Insert messy election results here, with arbitrary turnout.)
  
  

• 2000 Dec 28, Press conference by Resident "elect" Bush:
  There is gonna be disagreements.
  No, that should be "There are ..."

• 2002 July 4, a patriotic day to point out the real state of the union! CNN reports:

  "The International Criminal Court is troubling to the United States," Bush told reporters following a tour at a Milwaukee church. "As the United States works to bring peace around the world, our diplomats and our soldiers could be drug into this court, and that's very troubling -- very troubling to me."

  
  Drug? No, that should be "our soldiers could be drugged ..."
  We can see now why it is so troubling! ;^)

Pointers to transcripts:

• The Commission on Residential Debates
• www.debates.org
• www.cnn.org

Other related web sites that give more examples:

• Senator Reid has collected more bloopers:

  • Congressional Record: October 25, 2000 (Senate) [Page S11020-S11022]
  • Congressional Record: October 26, 2000 (Senate) [Page S11111-S11113]
  Unfortuantely GPO links fail. To locate these, search for the specific page at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces150.html.

• The Complete Bushisms by Jacob Weisberg

• 2003 Jan 1. Bushisms made it onto the Lake Superior State University 2003 list of banished words (CNN report)

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