Editing Bushism (section)

==Discussion==
Bush's use of the English language in formal and public speeches has spawned several books that document the statements. A poem titled "Make the Pie Higher", composed entirely of Bushisms, was compiled by cartoonist [[Richard Thompson (cartoonist)|Richard Thompson]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Comics Reporter |url=http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/resources/interviews/12135/ |website=comicsreporter.com}}</ref><ref name="snopes">{{cite web |url=http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/piehigher.asp |title=Make the Pie Higher! |access-date=October 12, 2006 |year=2002 |website=Snopes.com}}</ref> Various public figures and humorists, such as ''[[The Daily Show]]'' host [[Jon Stewart]] and ''[[Doonesbury]]'' cartoonist [[Garry Trudeau]], have popularized Bushisms.<ref>{{cite comic | cartoonist=[[Garry Trudeau|Trudeau, Garry]] | strip=[Doonesbury] | Date=April 16, 2006 | syndicate=Universal Press Syndicate}}</ref>

Linguist [[Mark Liberman]] of [[Language Log]] has suggested that Bush is not unusually error-prone in his speech, saying: "You can make any public figure sound like a boob, if you record everything he says and set hundreds of hostile observers to combing the transcripts for disfluencies, malapropisms, word formation errors and examples of non-standard pronunciation or usage<!-- {{nbsp}} -->...<!-- Is this indicating removed material from the quote? If so, uncomment the commented out {{nbsp}} before it and remove this comment. If not, simply remove this comment. --> Which of us could stand up to a similar level of linguistic scrutiny?".<ref>[[Mark Liberman]], [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000292.html "You say Nevada, I say Nevahda"]. January 3, 2004.</ref>  In 2010, [[Philip Hensher]] called Bush's apparent coinage of the term "misunderestimated" one of his "most memorable additions to the language, and an incidentally expressive one: it may be that we rather needed a word for 'to underestimate by mistake'."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/sarah-palin/7901926/Sarah-Palins-struggle-with-English-language.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100723031126/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/sarah-palin/7901926/Sarah-Palins-struggle-with-English-language.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 23, 2010 |title=Sarah Palin's struggle with English language |last=Hensher |first=Philip |author-link=Philip Hensher |date=July 21, 2010 |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |access-date=July 28, 2010 |location=London}}</ref>

[[Stanford University]] lecturer and former Bush advisor [[Keith Hennessey]] has also argued that the number of Bush's verbal gaffes is not unusual given the significant amount of time that he has spoken in public, and that his successor [[Barack Obama]]'s gaffes were not as scrutinized. In Hennessey's view, Bush "intentionally aimed his public image at average Americans rather than at Cambridge or [[Upper East Side]] elites".<ref>{{Cite web |title=George W. Bush Is Smarter than You {{!}} RealClearPolitics |url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/25/george_w_bush_is_smarter_than_you_118125.html |access-date=2024-04-27 |website=www.realclearpolitics.com}}</ref>

British journalist [[Christopher Hitchens]] published an essay in ''[[The Nation]]'' in 2000 titled "Why Dubya Can't Read", writing:

{{Blockquote|I used to have the job of tutoring a dyslexic child, and I know something about the symptoms. So I kicked myself hard when I read the profile of Governor George W. Bush, by my friend and colleague Gail Sheehy, in this month's ''Vanity Fair''. All those jokes and cartoons and websites about his gaffes, bungles and malapropisms? We've been unknowingly teasing the afflicted. The poor guy is obviously dyslexic, and dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy. [...]<!-- Does any of this matter? Of course it does. Bush has already claimed with hand on heart that he personally scrutinized the death-row appeals of more than a hundred condemned wretches in the shocking Texas prison system; we now have to face the fact that he not only did not review the clemency petitions but could not have read them even if he wanted to.--><br />
I know from my teaching experience that nature very often compensates the dyslexic with a higher IQ or some grant of intuitive intelligence. If this is true for Bush it hasn't yet become obvious.<ref>
{{ Cite web
 | url          = https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-dubya-cant-read/
 | title        = Why Dubya Can't Read
 | last         = Hitchens
 | first        = Christopher
 | date         = 2000-09-24
 | website      = thenation.com
 | publisher    = [[The Nation]]
 | access-date  = 2022-12-05
 | language     = en
 | url-status   = live
 | archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20211016120644/https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-dubya-cant-read/
 | archive-date = 2021-10-16
 | quote        = The poor guy is obviously dyslexic, and dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy.
}}
</ref>
}}

Bush's statements were also notorious for their ability to state the opposite of what he intended, including his remarks on the [[death tax|estate tax]]: "I'm not sure 80% of people get the death tax. I know this: 100% will get it if I'm the president." These incidents have been described as or likened to [[Freudian slip]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hall Jamieson |first=Kathleen |title=The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |pages=62}}</ref>

In 2001, Bush poked fun at himself at the annual Radio & Television Correspondents Dinner (now the [[White House Correspondents' Association|White House Correspondents Dinner]]), delivering a monologue reacting and responding to his Bushisms.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdd8QRi_OvI|title=George W. Bush makes fun of his own grammar(Bushisms)|date=July 13, 2015|via=YouTube}}</ref>

The term ''Bushism'' has become part of popular folklore and is the basis of a number of websites and published books. It is often used to [[caricature]] Bush.