So I kinda watched the SOTU last night in that it was on and I was in front of the TV. I’m really not a speech guy. I mean, the debates were interesting because you never could know when Bush might suddenly interject, “You want some wood?” Speeches just don’t have those moments.
Still, my ears perked up on the subject of the Social Security. I was like, “That’s my @#$% money! Give it to me!” But the Dems actually booed him. The Prez should not have taken that. He should have pulled out a .45, announced, “I like to call this my ‘Veto Power’,” and then fired at the Democrats, yelling, “I pardon myself!” with each trigger pull. That would have been awesome! If you’re going to broadcast the SOTU in HD with 5.1 surround, you at least need some action.
Bush also mentioned his plans for letting illegal immigrants run amok. I’m kinda ambivalent on that issue since I think anyone who doesn’t want to be an American is insane, but I bet Michelle Malkin isn’t going to like it. So what is this? Is the idea that, if we pander to illegal immigrants, we’ll get more Hispanic votes? Or do we Republicans just want cheaper nannies?
Anyhoo, the foreign policy part of the speech was what I cared about. Destroying stuff is what the federal government does best. Looks like Iran is next on the list, and hopefully we can count on a local uprising to take out those wacky mullahs. I say we put them in zoos and throw peanuts at them.
Oh, and when Bush said things about freedom and whatnot that got bi-partisan stand o’s, I kept trying to spot Ted Kennedy to see if he stood too. I kinda suspect no phrase of Bush’s could get him to move his massive girth, though – maybe other than “Free pork chops!” and “Look out! We’re about to hit the railing on the bridge!”
Okay; that was a cheap shot. Kennedy is fat and has a ginormous head, BTW.
SarahK got all angry when Bush still mispronounced “nuclear.” Hey, if he ain’t saying it right by now, he doesn’t have any intentions of ever getting it right. She also got angry at Bush’s pledge to give $350 million to the Palestinians. Yeah, I’d probably keep a sharp eye on that money… or at least write on the check, “Don’t use for terror.”
When the Iraqi woman who lost her father to the Saddam regime and had just voted hugged the mother of a KIA marine, I have to admit I got pretty misty eyed. Still, I have not actually cried since I was four and was shot twice in the arm with a 9mm (come on; I was four!).
Now, I think Bush is a sub par speaker, but Reid in the response was just horrible. After sleeping on it, I realized the speech wasn’t that bad, the delivery was just horrible. It just cried, “I’m reading a speech.” All the little folksy stuff – the punk skateboarder walking up to him in the restaurant, the “and I represent Las Vegas,” and the Groundhog Day reference were completely ungenuine coming from that guy. Like Randy of American Idol would say, Reid needed to take that speech and make it his own, dawg. Instead, he was just reading cue cards. (Kevin Drum thought the Las Vegas line was good; now that’s just pure, unbridled partisanship)
Whose idea was it to have Pelosi, with her ungodly smile that shakes one’s soul, talk about homeland security? Yeah, a San Francisco liberal is going to make us feel safer. I tell you, if that woman were standing next to my henhouse, I wouldn’t turn my back on her.
In summary, the response was horrible – it was less than nothing. It was just weak, and wouldn’t impress the regular Americans. It didn’t even give red-meat for the Manson family crazy Democrat base. The Democrats would have been better off ceding their response to a rerun of Wings.
So, what do you think? Were you convinced to become a Democrat now by the response? Do you care if Bush can say “nuclear”? Discuss!
I’m first!
I’m first!
I had to mute Reid when he began his speach sounding like Steve Martin in “The Jerk”. You know, ‘I was born a poor, black child…’ gag
Big Fat Teddy Kennedy wasn’t even there!
SSecond?
my wife keeps going nuclear whenever people “mispronounce” the word …. but heck … even after 8 years out of Texas … she still says “y’all”.
Sarahk ….. do you freak when the Brits mispronounce aluminum as “al-u-min-ium”???
Get Over It!!!
I can’t watch the lame response anymore. I end up throwing things at the TV they’re so stupid. I thought W did a good job, though. Maybe he’ll do something nookyaler with the moon.
I feel that the Democrats have finally figured out that they must appeal to the military voters. After all, 75% of the military voted for Bush, this despite the fact that they are fighting in an evil, imperical war for oil that resembles a quagmire like Vietnam. So that must mean the Dems really suck in the eyes of most military members. But hey, if the Democrats start promising to stop cutting military budgets and, as Rep. Pelosi states, create a military “second to none”, then maybe a few soldiers might start voting for them. But I wouldn’t hold my breath too long…
If Bush pronounces it “nuke-you-ler”, we need to change the pronunciation to match. Dammit.
Hey, in England when the german royalty set up shop, the upper classes began imitating their mistakes, rather than correcting them. The New England Yankee accent is closer to what much of England sounded like than anything else since then. Just imagine, Shakespeare sounding like Pepperidge farms commercials…
“To bee, ahr not to bee. Thaht is the the, er, question”
And Pelosi… she looked like an evil doll with fake glassy eyes. Or sharks eyes…
If Nancy Pelosi was standing next to your henhouse your rooster would peck her eyes out. Animals have this sixth sense that tells them when pure satanic evil is standing around asking to be blinded by the forces of righteousness. I think this would be a good cartoon but I’m not sure how effective a stick rooster would be.
I’d be disappointed if W started pronouncing nuclear correctly. Bet he gets it wrong now just to annoy people. (Sorry SarahK.)
I don’t care if he can “nuclear” or not, as long as he knows when to push the big red button controlling them.
Just had to point out that everything that Pelosi said the demobrats were committed to doing, Bush is doing. gotta love that!
I don’t understand how the Democrats can be so consistently wrong on so many things. You’d think the law of averages would have them not looking like asses on something…… And I want to propose a Constitutional Amendment to change the spelling of nuclear to nuc-u-lar.
I agree with Jack Harris. Our President has been mispronouncing nuclear since he was a child I’m guessing. Kind of like all those millions who can’t say realtor…including most realtors…they say re-la-tor. But at least our man knows that “W” doesn’t stand for Wrong…it stands for WhoopAss! Go President Bush!
Gotta agree with Retread. I think he does it because to paraphrase Kevin Spacey in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, it “pisses off ALL the right people.”
Pete, There are actually two different, but correct versions of the word “Aluminum”
In 1886, A Mr Hall invented the extraction process that we now use to make “Aluminium”. The word was changed to Aluminum by the American Chemical Society in 1925, but the rest of the world still calls it Aluminium.
Yeah the speech was great. As a college student we made it our job to turn it into a drinking game. Every time he said words like Iraq, freedom, plan, and had people standing we had to drink etc. So what was the final tally you ask? 159 drinks!!! I think we should make it a new American tradition. Oh yeah if he controls all the nuclear bombs then he can call them whatever the hell he wants. Like happy bombs.
44 standing ovations
27 terrorism
24 Iraq
23 freedom
11 democracy
8 liberty
6 congress
6 f*** ups
4 plan
2 weapons of mass destruction
2 privledge
2 protect
There is it all broke down. I am sure we missed some so drink extra.
So who would we rather have as President?
President JImmy Nuclear Engineer Carter, or President George Can’t Quite Pronounce Nuculer Bush.
Not much of a contest, is it? 🙂
that incedent with the punk skateboarder didn’t even happen.
ok, lemme defend myself. i didn’t get angry. i was annoyed because i was still trying to get dinner finished, and Frank was looking at the answers to the movie trivia without me (which he did stop when he realized i was annoyed). so when W said “nucular” i said, “i KNOW you know how to pronounce that after 4 years.” and later i thought “i know W does that just to say ‘heh. i’m the President and i’ll pronounce it any way i want. bite me!'” and that made me smile.
so no, i don’t think he should change the way he pronounces it. 😛
I still can’t get over how the Democrats have all become deconstructionists and don’t think everyone wants freedom. Why do they call themsevles “democrat” or “liberal” when they don’t even believe it?
Plus, they are meanies.
I just thought that when the Dems started booing, or hacking or coughing or whatever they were doing Bush should have just said “Shut Up. You bitches better recognize.” and then went on with his speech. They would have gotten the message.
MikeC
I gotta cut in here as a linguistics student. The reason people mispronounce “nuclear” is because it doesn’t fit the usual pattern of English words and isn’t of Germanic origin. Since it doesn’t fit into our normal speech patterns, we change it to a word that does. It’s the same thing that gives non-native speakers of a language an accent. “Nuclear” is essentialy a foreign word, so we pronounce it with an English accent, if you will.
I went to teach my CCD (cathechism) class last night, to find my pastor grinning from ear to ear and gloating about what a great speech it was and what a great president Bush is.
It’s the overall statement that counts!
JimBob: sounds like ebonics. Texonics?
“linguistics” is as foreign a word as nuclear, n’est wahr?
Regarding Reid’s speech, Rush says that he has callers who claim that 1) The Nugget is actually a casino and 2) there are no sidewalks (for the skateboarder) in his hometown.
Ok, no more of them metric ferun words; we speak American here, dang it.
W made another mispronunciation when he said “Iran, you’re next!” Oh wait, that’s what he should have said.
Nuclear(adj.): Using or derived from the energy of atomic nuclei: nuclear power.
Nuke (V.): To attack with nuclear weapons.
One could make a case that “nukular” has a valid usage as a word, in that it would be related to the verb “nuke” rather than synonymous with “nuclear”. “Nukular” could be used to mean “having the ability to nuke.”
A nukular weapon therefore is a weapon capable of nuking things. By definition it is also a nuclear weapon, but not all nuclear devices are nukular. A nuclear reactor, for example, is not nukular, unless something is horrendously wrong with it. Nuclear explosives, though, are nukular, and they produce nukular explosions.
When I grab onto my pit bull’s cheeks and pull back on them to get all the wrinkles out of his face – he looks just like Nancy Pelosi – except he’s smiling….
Didn’t Jimmy Carter pronounce it the same way? (After that, I’m pretty sure some dictionaries added an alternate pronunciation.)
So Reid represents Las Vegas exclusively? I thought he was Nevada’s Sr. Senator…
And N.P. shows how she can be the next Barbara Boxer…
The thing is, Bush does pronounce Nuclear correctly. However, like many Texans, he puts extra syllables into his words and pronounces L as ul. He also drops the vowel before an R, like in terrrrism and terrrist.
Sometimes, I say “well” with three syllables, fr example.
Considering the grammer I’ve seen from most people in here, including Frank J., we don’t have any room to criticize GWB without incrimnating ourselves 10x over.
-Brian
Every time GW says “Nukuler” you’ve got to take a drink. It’s a contest. I thought that was obvious ;).
Charlie
well i hate to admit it; but, I didn’t know who either of the two democrats were.
I will say that their speech was lamely read, I mean presented, and boring. The lady, where did she come up with that look? Pretty sad. Bush’s speech wasn’t too bad. The part about the soldiers Mom and Dad hit home as we have a son in the service.
614647
I don’t like what that number adds up to.
Well, Herbert Hoover invented the word “normalcy”, so why not have another president invent a word?
Many people mistakenly pronounce the word “nuclear” as “nukular”. But, also, MOST people say “jewlery” not “jewelry”.
George guy, I’m no Noam Chomsky (thank gawd), but I like yer linguistic reasoning!
Harry Reid, hire some real speechwriters. Yeesh.
“…since I was four and was shot twice in the arm with a 9mm (come on; I was four!)”
well, yeah, but a nine??!!???
Didn’t Jimmy Carter pronounce it the same way?
No, Jimmah said “NOO-KEY-ER”, and he was a Nuclear Officer in the Navy. But he did have lust in his heart, so that might be the reason he couldn’t pronounce it as well as W.
My favorite moment…when Bush pauses mid-sentence to quite obviously look down and read what must have been a phonetic spelling of an Iraqi’s name on the lecturn.
Gotta love that, Dubya!
I loved the speech. It was totally Hitler!
Ummm…I mean it was so Rankin-Bass?
Way to go, Heather. You just pulled a Gore on that one.
When I grab my butt cheeks and pull them apart, it looks just like nancy pelosi – or is that boxer? What’s the diff?
When I pull my butt cheeks apart and pass wind the smell reminds me of the stuff that pelosi is selling…
Love the Dumbocrats…Pelosi, Reid and now Howard Dean as their leader… You can’t make it up any faster…LOL!!!