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Subject: If George W. Bush was an idiot...
Zhang Fei    10/30/2009 8:13:11 AM
(I'm sure everyone's read this by now, but what the heck). Amusing list...:
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.
 
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Godofgamblers       11/20/2009 1:52:45 AM
Yeah, don't know who Obama let that slip by. I thought he was a well-educated type of guy. the media always seems to treat Mas Obama with awe though: i remember the bashing Bush got for talking about "the Grecians" .
 
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Godofgamblers       11/20/2009 2:06:19 AM



  Hold on, hold on, is the Austrian comment a case of Obama knowing too little or too much? I have some friends who have told me that Austrian is quite different from German and a non-German speaker who knows German would have difficulty understanding it. I don't know if you can go as far as saying it is a dialect, but maybe it is. Maybe this is what Obama was referring to.... dunno....Maybe a German speaker can clear this up? (NGI where are you?)




Well, perhaps a second language Spanish speaker can.  American English is my first language, but as a police officer in a predominantly Mexican district, I speak Spanish nearly every single day.  Most of the time I am dealing with Mexicans, but upon occasion I have had dealings with Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Ecuadoreans.  All spoke Spanish, but they all spoke very different forms of Spanish.  I am most familiar with Mexican Spanish (for obvious reasons), so that form of the language is easiest for me to understand.  Mexicans, especially well educated ones, are meticulous pronouncers, and the Spanish spoken there is very distinct from the Spanish spoken in Central America, South America, and Europe.  Guatemalans speak very rapidly, but I am slowly learning to keep up.  Cuban and Dominican Spanish, both coming from island nations, has went it's own direction and has its own slang.  Argentinian Spanish is heavily influenced by Italian, and is full of lilts and inflections that you would find in that language. 


My point is that if the President were to go to Paraguay and referred to the "Paraguayan language" he would be laughed off the stage.  Yeah, the Spanish spoken in Paraguay is different that the Spanish spoken in Mexico or Spain, but it is still the same language.  I'm sure that the German spoken in Vienna, Austria is different than the German spoken in Berlin, but it is not different enough to be classified as its own, distinct language.  The distance between Bangor, Maine and San Diego, California is much greater than the distance between Vienna and Berlin, but both cities still speak English, and for the most part the citizens of those cities would be able to understand one another.  Hell, London, England and Melbourne, Australia are half a world apart, but no President has every talked about an "Australian" language.  The point is that Obama made a stupid (or ignorant) mistake when he referred to the "Austrian" language.  If we was referring to the specific idiosyncrasies of the German spoken in Austria then he should have said "Austrian German."  In the President's defense the mistake was probably made by one of his speech writers, but he should have had the education and good sense to spot the mistake and correct it before he said it, or immediately after he said it. 

 

Still, the mainstream media gave Obama a pass on this one that they wouldn't haven't given Bush had he made the same error. 

 


Austrian German, that's the term i was looking for. You're undoubtedly right in comparing Euro Spanish and Central American Spanish to German and Austrian but using that logic, Obama would be even more off the mark, as the difference between Spanish dialects would be more pronounced due to geography, right? If you follow my thinking, Austrian and german would logically not be so far off due to their close proximity. But again, i am only guessing.
I remember Quayle saying how he wanted to go to Latin America but was embarrassed to not know Latin as it was longer taught in schools.... or was that an urban legend? I'll try to find his speech upon landing in Hawaii, as i remember reading that and thinking it was a classic.
 
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buzzard       11/20/2009 8:53:19 AM
Yeah, don't know who Obama let that slip by. I thought he was a well-educated type of guy. the media always seems to treat Mas Obama with awe though: i remember the bashing Bush got for talking about "the Grecians" .
 
 While this seems to be the accepted meme on Obama, it actually isn't all that true. He's no better educated than Bush. They both has 'C' average type University grades and neither distinguished themselves academically. While it is often cited that Obama was both an editor and President of the Harvard Law Review, it should be noted that he did not write extensively for that journal as is normally the case to attain those positions (he had one article published anonymously). As such, it can't be claimed as much of an intellectual attainment.
 
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Hugo    German or German   11/20/2009 9:53:50 AM

  Hold on, hold on, is the Austrian comment a case of Obama knowing too little or too much? I have some friends who have told me that Austrian is quite different from German and a non-German speaker who knows German would have difficulty understanding it. I don't know if you can go as far as saying it is a dialect, but maybe it is. Maybe this is what Obama was referring to.... dunno....Maybe a German speaker can clear this up? (NGI where are you?)

  It's disappointing perhaps that such a comment was made but then I have often heard that an American invented the automobile also.  Increasing democratization has had the unfortunate result that every new generation of elected officials seems less worldy wise than those before them.
 
There is no such thing as an Austrian or Austrian-German language.  The term Austrian-German or Österreichisch-Deutsch does not exist anywhere.  This is not because the German language does not differentiate, there is a term for Swiss-German or Schwizzerdütsch (I hope SP allows Umlauts) as there is a term for Luxembourgisch - the German spoken in Luxembourg.  There is also a term for the language spoken in parts of Northern Germany and the Netherlands called Plattdeutsch or Niederdeutsch (lower German).  There is the formal High German as originally outlined by Martin Luther and this is the official language of German speaking countries including both  Austria and Germany. 
 
There are a large variety of different dialects within Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe where German is an official language.  An Austrian is generally not difficult for a German to understand, even one from Berlin though this is not true for the Swiss who Northern Germans in particular find very difficult to understand if the Swiss dialect is spoken.  When speaking to non-Swiss, the Swiss adjust their spoken German for the benefit of their listener.  If the German Swiss do not wish to be understood by Germans though, they will switch to French.  In Vienna, as elsewhere in Austria, Hochdeutsch is spoken.  Some of the dialects within Austria are often easier to understand than those in Germany because they are spoken slowly (there are jokes about how Austrians are slow on account of their language) such as the German spoken by Arnold Schwarzenneger who comes from Austria's equivalent of the Appalachian backwoods.
 
There, now you know more than your president.
 
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Hugo       11/20/2009 10:15:58 AM

Incidentally, for those that are interested, not only is there no Austrian language, there is also no Austrian ethnicity.  Austrians are a mix of Germanic tribes, including the Franks (themselves a mixure Frank simply means "Free") Swabians and Bavarians.  Prior to the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, German speaking Austrians referred to themselves as Germans.

 
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eldnah       11/20/2009 10:50:38 AM
As a septuagenarian I suspect I am older than almost all of the posters on this site. I remember when I was young man and encountered an Afro-American in a position of responsibity and rank my first thought was that person probably was really good at what he did because of the prejudices he had had to overcome. Now when I see an Afro-American my first thought is that person is a beneficiary of affirmative action. The WaPo ran an article before the Bush-Gore election giving their SAT scores and college grades none of which were extraordinary and post the 2004 election we finally got Kerry's which were not substantially different from Bush's. Obama's grades and test scores appear to be more of a top secret than our military intelligence gathering methods.
Now I believe IQ and SAT scores are not the be all and end all but I do believe an intelligence score of about high 120's and up, coupled with sufficient experience, education, good temperament and judgment are necessary for the job of POTUS. If Obama is not a recipient of affirmative action why are his scores and grades available like those of previous Presidents and candidates?
The standing joke in our neighborhood is of a nice young man relatively recently graduated from Yale after having his pick from Princeton and Williams, whose dad tells the story that his son was in the top quarter of our ordinary small town high school's graduating class with low 1200's on his SATs. The young man, of Anglo-Saxon heritage, was able to put on his application that he was born in Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) and although he has a plain British first and last name he has a tribal middle name of a family friend from the country of his birth. He just happens to be a "White" Afro-American whose family fled racial persecution in their native country.  I wonder if Yale now requires a picture with an application.
 
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timon_phocas    Harvard MBA    11/21/2009 5:45:20 PM
Al Gore is regarded as an intellectual savant, a perceptive analyst of environmental subtleties; yet he never passed a single post-graduate course after his bachelor's degree.
 
George W. Bush, on the other hand, got an MBA from Harvard Business School. Now, maybe they hand those out as party favors to favors to all the children of the elite? If so, where is Al Gore's MBA?  
 
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PlatypusMaximus       11/21/2009 11:18:50 PM
Really when any of them do the dumb little things we all do, the only people who look silly are those who billed them as genius.
 
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Jeff_F_F    Maybe making this about Obama v. Bush is a bit too inflamatory...   11/24/2009 11:19:53 AM
Lets just make this about Democrats in general.
 
I hear a lot of Democrats now saying to their opponents basically "You lost. Get over it."
 
I can respect that attitude, even if I don't neccessarily agree with it on a gut level. I can especially see the value when it comes to international policy. There is something to be said for the idea that every 2 years we have a national debate, and every 4 years a bigger national debate and then we vote and the winners decide what we do until the next debate comes around. I don't think this is what our founders intended, but I can see the reasoning behind this idea, and I can respect it.
 
As long as those proposing that idea are consistent in their application of it.
 
As long as those who say that now obeyed that rule when it was their turn to be those who had lost.
 
As long as those who say that now spent those years of being on the losing side committing themselves to advancing the agendas of their opponents as much as they expect their opponents to commit to advancing their own agendas now. If they had said, "we lost, you won, we'll get over it and do our best to support you now, and then revisit this in a few years", I'd respect that.
 
As long as those who say that now were willing to present a united front and not choose to actively involve themselves in personally and directly undermining the diplomatic efforts of those who had won before. If they had united with their opponents against those who attacked us. If they had refrained from using our nation's struggle against those aggressors as an opportunity to harrass their opponents who were leading that fight by effectively forcing them into a two front war. If they at least cared that their actions could be providing morale support to the enemies that had killed thousands of our fellow civilian countrymen and were actively involved in killing both our own soldiers abroad and the civilian residents of the nations in which they were deployed. If they had that moral fiber, I could respect their position.
 
Otherwise I'd just call them hypocrites.
 
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Jeff_F_F    As to Obama and Bush   11/24/2009 11:59:54 AM
Let's imagine that Clinton had negotiated a defense project with China, which Japan had strenuously but unsuccesffully objected to and the acceptance of which although strategically advantageous to China in the long term had also strained relations with the two nations. Then lets say Bush had hoped to curry favor with Japan to gain support for the surge in Iraq during the summer of 2007, and had unilaterally and abruptly pulled out of the deal on July 7th of that year.
 
And that Bush had not even obtained any agreement of support from the Japanese in return for the diplomatic affront against China.
 
And that Bush had apparently no consideration that the date was the 40th aniversary of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Po...) marking Japan's transition from intermittent belligerence to full-scale genocidal war against China.
 
Do you think CNN and MSNBC would have just given him a pass on it?
 
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