posted on September 27, 2007 04:15:53 PM new "Childrens do learn," Bush tells school kids
Wed Sep 26, 2:03 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."
Bush made his latest grammatical slip-up at a made-for-TV event where he urged Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, the centrepiece of his education policy, as he touted a new national report card on improved test scores.
The event drew New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings plus teachers and about 20 fourth and fifth graders from P.S. 76.
During his first presidential campaign, Bush -- who promised to be the "education president" -- once asked: "Is our children learning?"
On Wednesday, Bush seemed to answer his own question with the same kind of grammatical twist.
"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured," he said.
The White House opted to clean up Bush's diction in the official transcript.
Bush is no stranger to verbal gaffes. He often acknowledges he was no more than an average student in school and jokes about his habit of mangling the English language.
Just a day earlier, the White House inadvertently showed how it tries to prevent Bush from making even more slips of the tongue than he already does.
As Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, a marked-up draft of his speech briefly popped up on the U.N. Web site, complete with a phonetic pronunciation guide to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.
posted on September 27, 2007 09:01:27 PM new
This stuff used to be funny. Then it became embarassing. Now it's no surprise, the man has become a caricature of himself.
posted on September 28, 2007 12:15:24 AM new
Like Nixon as a caricature, yes, but Nixon had brains (when he chose to use them). Bushit is nothing more than an empty shell of a human being, no brains, no morals, no decency, no honesty and no backbone...just a silly strutting puppet.
