I owe our president an apology. Maybe the Washington Post does, too. I criticized him for the following comment, which the Post presented this way:
BUSH: Look, I remember right after Iraq the first thing that happened out of some writers' pens was that, "Oh, no, they're getting ready to attack either Syria or Iran.'' You know, the march to war is just a campaign that's just going to march everywhere.
I watched the speech, and it was abundantly clear from his tone of voice and facial expression that the final sentence should be in quotes, too. In other words, he was saying that the writers were suggesting the campaign would march everywhere. Bush wasn't saying that himself. There's probably an important lesson here.
Posted by cradle at August 2, 2003 10:13 PMI don't think that's exactly right, and I think the quotes are in the right place. I think he was attributing "March to War" to the writers, and saying the writers were going to take it everywhere.
Posted by: Anonymous at August 5, 2003 11:03 AMI think I understand what you're saying. You think
Bush was saying 'You know, the "march to war" is just a campaign [by my detractors in the press] that's just going to march everywhere.'
I just watched that part of the speech again, though, and I disagree.
Posted by: David at August 5, 2003 12:19 PMMaybe the lesson is that Bush isn't the master rhetorician that he'd been hyped to be. He should've used a high pitched squeaky voice for the reporter's words. Then we would have understood.