posted on September 27, 2007 02:04:30 PM new
One more example of what a fool our President is in public.
Cleaning up after Bush: It was 'childrens do learn'
By Mark Silva
The White House said today it will be sure to clean up the official transcript of the comment which President Bush made yesterday about education: “Childrens do learn.’’
The problem is that White House stenographers got it wrong. The transcript reported it as “Children do learn.’’
But Bush had given new meaning to the term, plural, when he spoke in New York City yesterday about gains in student achievement made since the enactment of his education reforms. The gains were registered in the newest results of national testing this week.
"As yesterday's positive report card shows," the president said, "childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured."
The White House, which records everything the president says in public, dropped the S in its official transcript of Bush’s remarks. This, too, was an error, the White House spokeswoman said today, and it will not be repeated. The record will be set straight: “Childrens.’’
(President Bush pauses today while making a statement to reporters during his meeting with Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters in the Oval Office. AP Photo by Charles Dharapak)
“We checked into that,’’ Press Secretary Dana Perino said at the White House today. “That was not something that anyone in the press office or communication office or anyone in the White House asked for. It was… done at the stenographers office, and we asked for it to be changed back.
“You know, the president -- it is no secret -- sometimes makes grammatical errors,’’ she added. “And he also is somebody, though, that gives a lot of public comments. And I think in the grand scheme of things, if any of us were -- well, maybe now I am -- monitored for such things, that we would all have slip-ups from time to time.
“The point is he was very proud of the record that the -- the test scores that the students achieved,’’ Perino said, adding: “The integrity of the transcripts are very important to me and I've made that clear.’’
"In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious. - John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester
