“DIZZY” DEAN WAS A HALL OF FAME pitcher during the 1930s with the famous “Gashouse Gang” St. Louis Cardinals. He became a sportscaster known for his colorful butchering of the English language, as in, “Zarilla slud into third!” English teachers all over the country wrote irate letters demanding that Dizzy not use the word “ain’t.” Dean responded on the air:“A lot of folks who ain’t sayin’ ‘ain’t,’ ain’t eatin’. So, Teach, you learn ‘em English and I’ll learn ‘em baseball.”
George Bush also fashions himself as a good ol’ boy and was, in fact, a pitcher, albeit a benchwarmer at Yale. He too occasionally mangles the language, “Is our children learning?” (Not if they’re listening to you, they’re not.) Or, “Childrens do learn when the standards are high.” (Speaking of standards, how the hell did he graduate from Yale?) For some reason, W adds an “s” to indicate the plural of children, just as he refers to the Internet as the “Internets.” Go to YouTube, type, “Bush children is learning” and you won’t believe your eyes. Or maybe, after seven years, you will.
Perhaps Bush’s most embarrassing gaffe took place at the recent Israeli-Palestinian peace conference at Annapolis. Curiously, when Bush took office in 2001, he had no interest in Mideast peace, even criticizing Clinton for wasting his time. “They know where I am,” Bush said, arrogantly suggesting that when the parties were ready to get down to business to let him know.Otherwise he had a jog or a bicycle to ride to attend to.
Of late, Bush has done a 180. (Or as he might say it, a complete 360.) He must be giving thought to the “legacy thang” and with good reason. In 1980, Ronald Reagan summed up Jimmy Carter’s legacy by asking the country, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” After seven years of Bush, the answer is a no-brainer. (Pun intended.) I can’t think of a single area of domestic or international affairs where anyone is better off.(Except for Halliburton.) At the peace conference, with the whole world watching,Bush swaggered to the microphone and began introducing the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The only problem is he mispronounced both of their names! (At least neither party can feel more slighted.) Bush referred to Ehud Olmert as “Olmut” and Mahmud Abbas as “Mahumid,” stumbling over the names as though he had never heard them before! Couldn’t he have asked beforehand, “Say, what are these jokers’ names, again?” Adding insult to injury, he only stayed at the conference three hours, leading columnist Maureen Dowd to call it “drive-by diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, with Bush’s approval ratings in the 20s (lowest sustained ever) his acolytes are busily re-writing history, i.e. “Congress rushed us to war.” How dumb do they think we are? Apparently, very. They’re even citing the conference as a possible stepping-stone to the Nobel Prize. (Can’t you just hear Bush whine, “Gore got one, why not me?”) To me, the remarkable thing about Bush’s faux pas at Annapolis is that he wasn’t embarrassed. Then again, he wasn’t embarrassed about missing WMDs, as witness his tasteless jokes on the subject. I wonder how funny they were to Gold Star Mothers. In his defense of Annapolis, Bush chuckled, “I’ve never been very good with words” That begs the question: What are you good at? Unnecessary wars? How about saber rattling?
Bush is also good at cutting brush and playing dress up. (One day, he’s a cowboy, the next, a “Mission Accomplished” fighter pilot. To me, he’ll always seem more “Village People” than president.) Dizzy Dean was a charming good ol’ boy. People say that about poor George, but I have yet to see it. Maybe it’d help me if he had a good ol’ boy nickname? W has a nickname, “The Decider.” In defense of Rumsfeld, Bush told the press, “I hear the voices, but I’m the decider, and I decide what’s best.” (Anybody with his or her finger on the nuclear trigger, “hearing voices” makes me nervous, especially when that finger belongs to George Bush.) The day after the November ’06 election, W apparently heard “other voices” as he canned Rummy. Personally, I don’t like “The Decider” image. It sounds more like a dictator than a good ol’ boy. And given Bush’s track record of “deciding” for the past seven years, it’s not something you want to remind folks about. I like “Dizzy” better. Besides, even at his lowest, Dizzy never had approval ratings in the 20s.
JACK NEWORTH also writes the TV review column “Channel Surfing” for the Daily Press. He
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.