George W. Bush: pivotal campaign speeches?

Hello there,

being a non-U.S. citizen, news coverage of the recent presidential election was of a rather general nature over here. However, I need to know which of George W. Bush's campaign speeches were considered pivotal, or at least important enough to deserve further (linguistic) analysis.
I'd be very grateful if anyone could help me on this. (Maybe some of you even know of some articles analyzing George W. Bush's speeches from a linguistic point of view?)

Thanks in advance!

Bush? Linguistic? Your kidding, right?
This must be a school assignment. Bush only communicates in 10 second sound bites so good luck with this one.
Oh, and welcome to the Cellar. :)

Is your native language English? From your post, it appears that you are fluent in English, if not a native speaker. Bush's command of English is a joke. He made no speeches that swept Americans off their feet by his eloquence and command of language. If you wish to make a linguistic study of Bush's words, it would be a study of how NOT to use the English language, rather than how to speak it well. If you are wondering why Bush won, I can give you 4 words - ignorance, fear, and religous bigotry.

Hehe, I know Bush's verbal capabilities are ... limited. But doesn't that make him even more interesting for a linguistic analysis?! And yes, it's for uni, but I chose the topic myself, so ...

I'm not a native English speaker, by the way, but thanks for the compliment! :)

I'd be interested in finding out when he started using the Texas accent. His brother has just the barest hint of a southern accent. I suppose Neil could have dumped his accent but... Maybe one of our Texans could tell us if the Bush accent rings true?

He's always had it, as far as I can recall. His blonde daughter (Jenna) DEFINITELY has it, the brunette (Barbara) much less so.

Pretty much all our governors have a pretty strong twang. It makes them more "authentic." Then again, substantial portions of our population have it too, so maybe it does.

The linguistic analysis of any Bush speech will find that his down-home delivery and lack of difficult words is reassuring and likeable to the majority of the electorate.

I can't tell you how reassured and warm and fuzzy the following statements by our fearful leader make me feel:

"If a person doesn't have the capacity that we all
want that person to have, I suspect hope is in the
far distant future, if at all." (speaking to a group of handicapped Americans)

"This administration is doing everything we can to end
the stalemate in an efficient way. We're making the right
decisions to bring the solution to an end."

"Redefining the role of the United States from enablers
to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace
from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment."

"The California crunch really is the result of not enough
power-generating plants and then not enough
power to power the power of generating plants."

There are zillions more equally reassuring statements that Junior has made.

Yes, but for the most part Bush understands the principle meaning behind the statement but fails to eloquently communicate it.

That's different from the isolated comments of Dan Quayle. Quayle would try to make an intellectual statement but didn't understand what he was actually trying to say.

Undertoad wrote:

Yes, but for the most part Bush understands the principle meaning behind the statement but fails to eloquently communicate it.

I'm not sure that I agree with that. If that were truly the case then I believe that he would have learned to express himself by now.

He's the president of the United States but he sounds like an idiot.

Undertoad wrote:

Yes, but for the most part Bush understands the principle meaning behind the statement but fails to eloquently communicate it.

That's different from the isolated comments of Dan Quayle. Quayle would try to make an intellectual statement but didn't understand what he was actually trying to say.

How do we know he understands it when he can't express that knowledge to us? He could just be pulling stuff out of his ass for all we know. Dan Quayle was a true idiot; I don't think Bush is that much smarter.

I attended a conference at which my segment presenter was from Midland, TX.

Midland, TX is famous for two things. It's the town where that little girl fell down the well ... (Baby Jessica).

And it's where GWB is from.

His accent, while softened, does match the rather thick, sometimes comical accent of my presenter.

Read them and see - if they were being spoken to you they would come across differently, but you wouldn't necessarily stop and wonder what the hell in context. You'd kinda-sorta get it, which is the goal of that TYPE of communication, and you'd both move on. They're the explanations of someone who was told what the deal was, and then stated it in his own way. Compare and contrast to a Quayleism:

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." - D. Quayle

Now THAT'S just someone dumb trying vainly to make an intellectual statement...

Undertoad wrote:

You'd kinda-sorta get it, which is the goal of that TYPE of communication, and you'd both move on. They're the explanations of someone who was told what the deal was, and then stated it in his own way.

I get your point, but the quotes listed above by Mari don't make a whole lot of sense to me. And how do you explain his mispronunciation of words (i.e. the infamous "nuke-u-lar") and his use of words that don't exist in any dictionary? Shouldn't someone that intelligent have a better grasp of the English language?

I just have a hard time believing that GWB is doing any of this stuff on purpose to make himself look like "one of us." The guy has a huge ego (as does every President we've had) and I can't believe that he would sacrifice the appearance of being an intellectual for that good ol' boy sort of "charm."

It would be nice if we could get the quotes in context, but googling for bush speech "california crunch", the first 50 links are collections of Bushisms. Then it turns out the original is from the NYT January 2001, which means that if we had the original, we wouldn't get it in context anyway.

I think he's truly ineloquent, not faking it - except for not correcting "nuke-u-lar", I think they leave that in on purpose. And although it hurts America by making it hard for Bush to be a true leader, there are no perfect people available to lead us.

Here's a quote by Bush from the second Bush/Kerry debate this fall that is worthy of Dan Quayle at his finest:

"We proposed and passed a healthy forest bill which was essential to working with -- particularly in Western states -- to make sure that our forests were protected. What happens in those forests, because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be -- they are not -- they're not harvested. They're not taken care of. And as a result, they're like tinderboxes."

Unharvested forests cause forest fires. Well, that's true - if there were no trees to burn, there would be no fires. Solution: get rid of trees. Bush happens to own a lumber mill company, BTW. :eyebrow:

Forest fires are part of the lifecycle of the forest, however, because of development in or near forest lands, more than just the forest is threatened, and we have to do something about it ... proactively managing the forest lands to try to reduce the likelihood of major forest fires makes more sense. This includes clearing underbrush which provides fuel for the fires as well as cutting down some trees to make firelanes and firebreaks in the event that a major fire does start.

It's not just about getting rid of trees. It's about removing them in the right places and the right ways ... and also replanting to avoid problems caused by soil erosion, runoff, and mudslides.

If you wish to prevent forest fires, what needs to be removed are dead trees, fallen branches, and underbrush. Thinning out some younger trees may sometimes help as well, since smaller trees are more flammable. Lumber companies do not want dead wood, broken branches, underbrush, or immature trees. In fact, harvested forest is much more likely to have dead wood and branches laying around, underbrush grows quickly in harvested areas, and replanting consists (of course) of immature trees.

Of course, you can't make much money dragging dead wood out of a forest.

One of my colleagues who has been in the business for a very signicant period of time is possibly the absolutely worst public speaker imagineable. he can't give a 5 minute presentation without making me cringe and yet he is one of the most intelligent men i have ever met and prospective clients wait in line to get a chance to speak with him. it seems likely that these people understand that the person with the smoothest delivery isn't always the most qualified or the best choice to hire, while the person with less than admireable speaking skills is sometimes perfect for the job.

There is a growing school of thought at least in Australia (lets face it, they get a lot of big fires) that *any* forest management is stupid. Before we came along forests somehow managed to manage themselves and do a pretty good job of it, some things we do, like not having regular fires only creates problems and 'clearing' has been shown to utterly fuck the forest ecosystem by removing the habitat of hundreds of species.

In australia regular fires are *needed* for germination of some plants for crying out loud and the reason the really destructive fires, crown fires start is because there isn't enough regular smaller firest coming though cleaning things up a bit, these forests have been around longer than us, hundreds of species have developed to live in an ecosystem in which fire is an essential part, in short, leave the fucking forests alone.

marichiko wrote:

Here's a quote by Bush from the second Bush/Kerry debate this fall that is worthy of Dan Quayle at his finest:

"We proposed and passed a healthy forest bill which was essential to working with -- particularly in Western states -- to make sure that our forests were protected. What happens in those forests, because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be -- they are not -- they're not harvested. They're not taken care of. And as a result, they're like tinderboxes."

Unharvested forests cause forest fires. Well, that's true - if there were no trees to burn, there would be no fires. Solution: get rid of trees. Bush happens to own a lumber mill company, BTW. :eyebrow:

Whew..glad you put what he said in "english", b/c I was sitting here like "WTF???" :eek:

No matter how anyone "dresses" it up, the man can't speak worth a damn and as far as being "one of us"...well, don't include me in that mess. :mad:

marichiko wrote:

Bush happens to own a lumber mill company, BTW. :eyebrow:

Not really - he has a small stake in a lumber company, and recieved a small amount of money from it, and one year his accountant put that down as small business income. Kerry's point was that even that tiny (especially compared with Bush's other finances) transaction was enough to count Bush as a small business when using the Republicans' inflated numbers.

The central point not lost that W's statement was essentially a correct summary and not a Quayle-ish dunderheadism. The irony not lost that it was a dunderheaded interpretation that got it wrong in the name of being smart and communicating clearly.

wolf wrote:

Forest fires are part of the lifecycle of the forest, however, because of development in or near forest lands, more than just the forest is threatened, and we have to do something about it ... proactively managing the forest lands to try to reduce the likelihood of major forest fires makes more sense. This includes clearing underbrush which provides fuel for the fires as well as cutting down some trees to make firelanes and firebreaks in the event that a major fire does start.

It's not just about getting rid of trees. It's about removing them in the right places and the right ways ... and also replanting to avoid problems caused by soil erosion, runoff, and mudslides.

Wolf, you are quite correct in your statements. Forest fires which threaten nearby structures need to be agressively contained (although a Conservative might make a statement to the effect that if people chose to build homes near national forests, they should accept the consequences of any subsequent forest fire and not expect the government to bail them out for their lack of foresight ;) ).

Many species of western trees have evolved with fire as a part of the ecosystem. Jeffrey and yellowbark pines, among others, can withstand a small brush fire on the forest floor and be unharmed. Fire even causes the cones of some pines to open up and allow the new seeds to germinate in the cleared spaces after a fire has been through. Aspen have evolved root systems which lie dormant beneath the forest floor and spring to life once a fire makes an opening for them.

Forest fires have become a major problem only since we started "managing" forests by suppressing fire. Fire suppression has caused the build up of undergrowth and logging companies are notorious for leaving piles of "slash" on the forest floor in the wake of their operations. This all leads to an enormous build up of fuel on the forest floor. When fires went through the forests on a regular basis they burned the small amount of fuel lying on the ground that had accumulated since the last fire and seldom developed into the destructive crown fires which rage through a forest destroying all in their path and killing fire fighters.

Bushes cause fires, not trees. Yet, the current administration's policy is to harvest timber under the guise of fire suppression. Over zealous timber harvesting is a disaster in the Rocky Mountain West. Trees here simply do not regenerate fast enough because our climate is too arid. Take out too many trees and the result is soil erosion, loss of habitat, and permanent loss of hundreds of acres of forest. Seedlings can't survive in clear cuts here. Without the protection of shade from standing trees, the young seedlings dry up and die. It's that simple. If you were to come out here I could show you areas of Colorado that were clear cut a hundred years ago and STILL have not come back.

Bush's policies show a lack of understanding of the basics of forest ecology and shameless pandering to the big lumber companies all in the name of "fire suppression." What a joke!

Ace_NoOne wrote:

Hello there,

being a non-U.S. citizen, news coverage of the recent presidential election was of a rather general nature over here. However, I need to know which of George W. Bush's campaign speeches were considered pivotal, or at least important enough to deserve further (linguistic) analysis.
I'd be very grateful if anyone could help me on this. (Maybe some of you even know of some articles analyzing George W. Bush's speeches from a linguistic point of view?)

His State of the Union address in January 2002. It defined how America would attack without provocation. It defined the concept on which American foreign policy would change - to act more like Hilter and Tojo rather than like Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis or Eisenhower during the Suez Crisis.

Most interesting is the paragraph where he associates Saddam with the WTC attack. In short, he lies by implication - also known as propaganda. As a result, 70% of Americans believed that Saddam and Iraq were involved with the WTC attack. Clearly anyone with basic news sources back then knew it was a lie. But most Americans only know of the world in terms of Rush Limbaugh sound bytes. People will listen to Rush Limbaugh every day for hours, but never read or listen to a single responsbile news source. The speech said what right wing extremist radio propagandists only amplified. Most Ameircans believed lie after lie - ie the alumunim tubes to make nuclear bombs - because Americans are being bombarded by right wing extremists pretending to be news sources (Fox News) and religion broadcasts that are mostly political interpretation of current events from "god's perspective". IOW lies and propaganda no different that the information used to put the Nazi party in power.

Yet, information sources in much of the US have changed that much.

Being overseas, you probably have little appreciation with the 'veins hanging from teeth' mentality that existed in America in 2002. The Project for a New American Century listed unilateral attacks, if necessary, on Russia, Germany, or India. In 1996, that seemed rediculous. But with militaristic mentalities as in 1960s VietNam, the possibility of America attacking these other nations has increased.

Look. No one in their wildest dreams ever thought America would attack another nation for no reason AND do so when most every close friend (France, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, etc) were opposed. No one thought any member of the UN Security Council could do that anymore.

That Jan 2002 speech defined what we will do. Now that Iraq has been invaded (98,000 Iraqi citizens dead as a result), now nations like Iran and North Korea know that no other nation will help them to defend themselves even in the realms of international law ie UN). Americans have now decided that other nations - even Canada - are misguided and should be ignored.

What has changed? First Iran and N Korea must build as nany nuclear weapons and other WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) as they can. Second, the attitude of that Jan 2002 speech resulted even in the approval of torture as a legitamate tool of warfare. This is how extremist Americans have become. Oncde the world's leaders in morality, instead we have made immorality as 'situation normal'. Terrorism is now justified because even America approves of and executes torture. Right wing extremists now have reinterpreted the law to make torture legal - redefining toture only as something that leaves an organ permenently destroyed. A partially damaged liver is not torture.

So the world changed suddenly everywhere. Even UN or Red Cross convoys in Central Africa - once safe everywhere in those countries - are now routinely attacked. For the first in many world hot spots, the Red Cross has had to remove its logo from trucks and bases. It is now good and acceptable to even attack, torture, and murder the NGOs.

This is what has changed. Standards of morality throughout the world have changed for the worse - to reflect Americas attitudes - including all Germans and Frenchmen are dumb idiots. This is the attitude of those who do vote - the religious right extremists - who also advocate a Middle East war to create Armagedon - the second coming of Christ and the conversion of remaining Jews to Christianity is the ultimate objective. And yet a major group of Americans with generations of work in international politics and military signed a joint statement that said George Jr has literally destroyed 40 years of work. That is the agenda of some politically powerful Americans.

Cancer does not appear big and obvious. It first appears in the little details. Same reason why most every American under 30 did drugs during the VietNam era. After all, the president was a liar and a crook. He even lied on national TV by saying, "I am not a crook". Therefore drug use increased. Distrust of all authority skyrocketed. Stagflation was inevitable (since under Nixon, budgets did not matter just like today).

Crime increased significantly. It is what happens when top management is corrupt - has no morals - imposes religious beliefs on others. No body expected the Spanish Inquisition. It happens when religion rather than basic human knowledge is real to rule and people forget how evil religion can become if it is the government. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition - or that America would authorize torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraid. But that is how both America and Americans have changed. That began with the president's Jan 2002 speech that really said Americans must fear all other people - and here are the top countries on that list: the Axis of Evil.

The US is moving for an attack on Iran that will occur on or after 2006. Iran is the next country on the list of nations that America will attack. It is why two heavy American divisions are being removed from NATO - countries who cannot be trusted. Just like in Hitler's Mein Kampf, first promote the propaganda - the hate. Last week, the propaganda to justify the invasion of Iran started. Then the nation will want to attack anyone as, for example, evil Checkoslavakians were attacked by benevolent Nazi Germans.

It started with the January 2002 State of the Union address that should be available at http://www.whitehouse/gov .

Instead of Bush's address, I really really enjoyed Tony Blair's address...

here

Pity it was full of lies and omissions.

well, omissions I dont doubt, but lies? Cite, please.

We are now seriously asked to accept that in the last few years, contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence, he decided unilaterally to destroy the weapons. Such a claim is palpably absurd.

the 8 December declaration is false.

Iraq continues to deny it has any WMD, though no serious intelligence service anywhere in the world believes them.

.

what serious intelligence service believed that they had no WMD - at THAT time?

judging by all the stuff that's come out since it appears most had doubts about what WMD or what capability they had to use it at best. The fact of the matter is that Bush and Blair are equally guilty of blowing out of all proportion the evidence as it was either with full knowledge they were distorting the truth beyond recognition or not bothering to go back and find out the situation either directly from primary sources or intel services. Both bush and blair are equally guilty of blaming the intel services for their own failings.

marichiko wrote:

Wolf, you are quite correct in your statements. Forest fires which threaten nearby structures need to be agressively contained (although a Conservative might make a statement to the effect that if people chose to build homes near national forests, they should accept the consequences of any subsequent forest fire and not expect the government to bail them out for their lack of foresight ;) ).

Yes..yes!! Now you're getting it. :biggrin:

lookout123 wrote:

what serious intelligence service believed that they had no WMD - at THAT time?

Totally irrelevant to the bottom line what they believed. No WMDs could be found - because none existed. Furthermore when real intelligent people complained the president was misrepresenting the facts, the were told and I quote, "The fix is in".

The Tony Blair speech lies by misrepresenting facts. UN defanged Saddam by 1996. In fact, every honest American can thank the UN for doing their job. Due to UN success, there were no massive American casulties in 1993. UN did its job. Therefore thousands - and maybe tens of thousands of Americans did not die in Iraq. Simple fact that the Tony Blair speech intentionally distorts - to promote a lie.

And he must lie because he started lying when he 'sexed up' the threat. Liars must lie more to coverup their lies.

Saddam was not a threat to America as any intelligent American now knows. Saddam was a diminishing threat even to everyone in the region. This from American generals before we Pearl Harbored Iraq. Thank you president Tojo for not thanking UNSCOM. Thank you Tony Blair for lying so you don't have to admit you were lying previously.

jaguar wrote:

The fact of the matter is that Bush and Blair are equally guilty of blowing out of all proportion the evidence as it was ... Both bush and blair are equally guilty of blaming the intel services for their own failings.

Deja Vue. The same people who believed lies about aluminum tubes are being lies to again so they will demand the attack on Iran. Amazing how many people will believe outright lies only because the man has a 'president' in front of his name.

The pivotal speech - Jan 2002 State of the Union address - as public lies began.

bush kicks ass. democrats suck ass

TurkishGUY wrote:

bush kicks ass. democrats suck ass

Close, but I think the proper phrasing is "Bush orders hundreds of thousands of dedicated young men and women to kick ass to further the personal agenda of his supporters in a poorly planned and executed operation that has inflamed resentment against America and has resulted in the death and severe injury of thousands of brave solidiers, resulting in the suffering and hardship of tens of thousands of their family members."

Of course, your "bush kicks ass" fits really nicely on a bumper sticker, so I guess you win. My bad. :blunt:

The Tony Blair speech lies by misrepresenting facts.

Here's an good example of just that.

This from American generals before we Pearl Harbored Iraq.

To rational people "Pearl Harbored" would mean a sneak attack. The invasion of Iraq was hardly a secret. Saddam and the whole world knew it was going to happen months in advance. Misusing that term repeatly indicates it's being used to inflame and incite an emotional response rather than relying on facts to convince the reader. :eyebrow:

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

Here's an good example of just that. To rational people "Pearl Harbored" would mean a sneak attack. The invasion of Iraq was hardly a secret. Saddam and the whole world knew it was going to happen months in advance. Misusing that term repeatly indicates it's being used to inflame and incite an emotional response rather than relying on facts to convince the reader. :eyebrow:

I agree, we did not 'Pearl Harbor' Iraq. We did, however, invade the country on what appears to have been a trumped up pretext, which is pretty much what Hussein did when he invaded Kuwait. Right now our current adminstration is locked into the 'we did it to free Iraq' story. Really the only two choices they have is that they made a mistake based on bad intelligence or deliberately misled Congress to acheive a goal they desired all along. So instead of impeachment for incompetence or deceit, we have an 'accidental war of liberation', and a 'freedom occupation'.

Oh, I agree with you Rich.
I was just objecting to the Pearl Harbor thing. ;)

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

Here's an good example of just that. To rational people "Pearl Harbored" would mean a sneak attack. The invasion of Iraq was hardly a secret. Saddam and the whole world knew it was going to happen months in advance.

Pearl Harbor - attack another nation without a declaration of war. Attack another nation without any provocation for war. How it is done tatically is irrelevant. In the original Pearl Harbor, the emotional hype the sneak attack part. But the strategic importance of a Pearl Harbor attack is significant. It is also why Robert Kennedy said he understood how Tojo felt. The invasion of Cuba would not have been a secret. But we almost 'Pearl Harbored' Cuba. Again without declaration of war but at least with a purpose.

Iraq was invaded for no reason - other than the greater glory of George Jr. There was no declaration of war. There was no legal authorization for war. As the Secretary General said, the invasion of Iraq was illegal. One cannot get much closer to meeting the definition of 'Pearl Harbor'.

Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack. Fine. A beautifully executed tactical manuever. But what makes Pearl Harbor so wrong lies in no declaration of war, no justified reason for war, and done only for the greater glory of the supreme leader. Three reasons apply both to Japan's attack at Pearl and to US invasion of Iraq. The US 'Pearl Harbored' Iraq.

Yeah, ok. There was a declaration of war, they just forgot to give it to us before the attack. Yeah, I know they tried to time giving it to us to less than an hour before the attack and failed, same difference. There was also a reason which was to keep us (MacArthur) from interfering with their taking over the whole Pacific, especially SE Asia.

But all that aside, I think to most people, Pearl Harbor means sneak attack. :)

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

But all that aside, I think to most people, Pearl Harbor means sneak attack.

.... which is why I knew sooner or later I was going to have to again explain the concept. Yes, the emotional aspect of Pearl Harbor is why it made such a perfect smoking gun. Hands down - it so vilified the Axis powers as to make, for example, spys virtually impossible within this country. It completely destroyed any anti-war movement. It did just as Admiral Yamamoto worried. It awoke a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.

But the point remains that the US invaded Iraq on same principles that America considers so despicable at Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately some people prefer not to see it that way.

tw wrote:

.... which is why I knew sooner or later I was going to have to again explain the concept.

It's not a matter of trying to explain the concept. It's a matter of you getting the concept totally wrong. You so desperately attempt to put the US in a bad light that you'll reach for any bad thing you can find, and this time your reach has exceeded your grasp.

Even the little teeny point of congruency you're attempting to reach for -- that Japan attacked the US to keep the US out of the war, and the US attacked Iraq to forestall future aggressive endeavors -- isn't really all that similar. And it doesn't matter; the reasons for Japan attacking the US weren't what made Pearl Harbor so terrible in the minds of Americans. The mere fact of the attack was one reason, and the manner was another.