wanksta Bush

The WSJ has an article confirming what we've known all along:

At a late-afternoon Paris news conference in May 2002, a jet-lagged President Bush rushed through sentences, mangled some words and teased an American journalist for asking President Jacques Chirac a question in French. Asked about street demonstrations protesting his presence, Mr. Bush drawled: "The only thing I know to do is speak my mind.... A lotta people on the Continent o' Europe appreciate that."

Last month, addressing European leaders in Brussels, Mr. Bush spoke precisely, with only traces of his twang. He paid homage to the Continent's political legacy, such as the Magna Carta, and flawlessly pronounced the name of Albert Camus.

Linguists and longtime watchers of Mr. Bush say it is evidence of a subtle but unmistakable change the 43rd president has undergone in speaking style. He is enunciating more clearly and dotting his remarks with more literary references. Gone is much of the verbal swagger, which produced such memorable first-term phrases as "bring 'em on" (said of Iraqi insurgents) and "dead or alive" (said of catching Osama bin Laden). Some linguists even say they detect a dialing-down of Mr. Bush's Texas accent, at least in his formal speeches....

And in a word like "my," which Mr. Bush often pronounced somewhat like "mah" in the past, he partly reformed this "non-gliding vowel," as linguists call it. In his 2005 speech, Mr. Bush also generally pronounced the words ending in "ing" without dropping the "g," unlike in 2004. He largely overcame his tendency to say "hunnerd" for "hundred," and started pronouncing the word "government" more precisely. Still proliferating, though, are pronunciations of "nuclear" as "nu-kyoo-lar."...

The Texas strut and drawl may have worked well to win votes and given Mr. Bush a regular-Joe appeal in his first four years when he still faced re-election. Now that he is trying to sell an ambitious second-term agenda -- overhauling Social Security and the tax system, in addition to helping bring democracy to the Middle East -- his remarks are often more conciliatory and appear to be targeted more at congressional critics and European leaders. Playing to that crowd means Mr. Bush portrays himself a bit less as a Texas Ranger and more as an Ivy League-educated chief executive -- which of course he is....

The makeover is far from extreme. In his less-formal appearances, Mr. Bush certainly still invokes colloquialisms. The baby-boom generation, he often reminds audiences in talking about Social Security, "is fixin' to retire." But in a speech Tuesday night, he said "getting ready to retire."

"Fixin' to retire?" Is he 50 Cent? What a jerk. And why is this article in a newspaper made for people ON WALL STREET? Can we get a reprint in the nationally syndicated Littleman Times-Picayune? Funny how a right-wing publication can treat this story like an amusing insight into How Our President Works, when they know only their more elite partymates will be reading it. The heartland voters would be annoyed with Bush's just-a-dude bullshit, because no one likes a poser. On the other hand, we don't actually have to listen to him talk like that as much anymore (ever a source of Rage and/or nausea and/or decreased will to live). Though we'll never forget "Hey Daaaaaeeeeeddy."

In fact there may be some striking parallels between 50 Cent and Bush, and G-Unit and the administration. They're both obsessed with loyalty, both flaunt their illegal activities in exchange for praise, and both orchestrate really lame publicity stunts that are supposed to make us sweat them more. Oooh, ooh and they're all ugly. Haha.