I say APEC, you say OPEC -- I say Australia, you say Austria

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, yes, I know -- anyone can mess up and say the wrong thing, such are the demands of public speaking. It's just that it's especially funny when Bush messes up and says the wrong thing, and, of course, he messes up and says the wrong thing a lot. Why is it funny? Well, because it's George W. Bush, because it reinforces the image of Bush as something of a fool, an ignoramus, a buffoon to whom both the English language and the wider world around him are foreign lands. Just as he seems to know so little about the wider world, so does he mangle the English language and stick his foot in his mouth, repeatedly.

And so it was at the APEC summit in Australia, where Bush messed up and said the wrong thing by referring to OPEC and to Austria. Easy enough mistakes, perhaps, but typical, for Bush.

Consider these headlines (with links):

• Bush: OPEC or APEC;
• Bush: Note To Self, Thank Austr(al)ians -- Amid Presidential Gaffes, Missteps And Protests, APEC Summit Draws Toward Conclusion;
• How Australia became Austria – and in Opec;
• Bush has bad day at Sydney Opera House; and
• Bush displays gift of the gaffe in Sydney.

And the Australians are having fun with it, too. Here's a headline (with link) at The Sydney Morning Herald:

• Some verbal gymnastics, and Bush is in Austria (a funny piece, indeed -- check it out).

Now, Bush's defenders -- and there are still a few of them around -- will argue that Bush is being unfairly picked on. But this is George W. Bush, the most powerful man in the world, a man who has waged wars, is waging them still, a man of confident self-righteousness, a man at the top of the world without the intellectual capacity to back it up. If anyone deserves a bit of picking on, it's Bush.

And so, for your amusement, I present you this short clip (The Raw Story has a longer one) of Bush's OPEC/APEC gaffe (check out the headline at the bottom: "United States President George W Bush Says Iraq Operation Is 'The Calling Of Our Time'" -- actually, it would have been far more accurate for him to have said that getting out of Iraq is the calling of our time):