In an attempt to demonstrate that Bush is liar, an idiot, or both, Slate has been running a “Bushisms” column for some time. And, to show that they’re fair and balanced, they’ve recently started running a “Kerryisms” column as well, to show that the senator is longwinded and overly-baroque in his rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Problem is, as Spinsanity puts it, the Slate writers (Jacob Weisberg and William Saletan) are so eager to maintain the thesis, that they’re seemingly more than willing to strip context and oversimplify situations<\/a> in their stereotyping of both candidates’ statements.<\/p>\n The most recent example of an inaccurate “Bushism” shows how Weisberg frequently misconstrues the President’s words. At a May 25 event <\/a>with men who had been given prosthetic hands to replace the ones cut off by Saddam Hussein’s regime, Bush said, “I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.” Since the men had prosthetic hands, it’s clear what the President meant. But in a “Bushism<\/a>“, Weisberg presented the quote out of context, making it appear nonsensical.<\/p>\n In the Saletan pieces on Kerry, he often asserts that important (if, perhaps, awkwardly expressed) caveats and embellishments are, in fact, unnecessary — which, frankly, would sometimes lead to statements as (evidently) simplistic as the ones Bush is accused of.<\/p>\n Bush makes a number of amusing verbal constructions. And Kerry makes some, too, in the opposite direction. But it should be enough to point out the ones that actually are worthy of some ribbing, rather than manufacturing some to fill out weekly column space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an attempt to demonstrate that Bush is liar, an idiot, or both, Slate has been running a “Bushisms” column for some time. And, to show that they’re fair and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11532,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/06\/the_pink_house.html","url_meta":{"origin":5970,"position":0},"title":"“The Pink House”","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Aug-07 7:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I think this is actually serious. Now, isn't it way past time that yet another high profile sodomite, a cocaine abuser shamelessly guilty of hiring male prostitutes to service him,...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/10\/liar_liar_iraqs.html","url_meta":{"origin":5970,"position":1},"title":"Liar, liar, Iraq’s on fire?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Jul-03 6:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Since it's nearly impossible to turn around over the past few days without running accross references to (essentially) Bush blatantly lying in his 2003 State of the Union address about...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2274,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/17\/solutions.html","url_meta":{"origin":5970,"position":2},"title":"Solutions","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Jul-02 1:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Carlton Vogt writes on ethics in InfoWorld.com. In his 12 July column, he discusses the current corporate scandals, and makes an interesting observation: As I write this, the Bush administration...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5436,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/11\/corollary.html","url_meta":{"origin":5970,"position":3},"title":"Corollary","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Mar-04 11:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"As a corollary to the note below on the dangers of partisanship becoming triumphant within the polarized nature of current US politics, one danger is that anything that happens, or...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21455,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/05\/unblogged-bits-tue-5-jul-11-1730.html","url_meta":{"origin":5970,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Tue. 5-Jul-11 1730)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Jul-11 5:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... YouTube - \u202aThe Star Wars Zone\u202c\u200f - It's a GOOD thing you sent your father out to the corn field, Luke! Complaint Box: How E-Readers Destroyed My Love Life - NYTimes.com - The flip\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marriage Equality"","block_context":{"text":"Marriage Equality","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/marriage-equality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3452,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/19\/less_with_moore.html","url_meta":{"origin":5970,"position":5},"title":"Less with Moore","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Nov-02 6:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"Spinsanity has another fine skewering of Michael Moore and his film, Bowling for Columbine. Putting aside Moore's claim to be in it for the humor, the column points out the...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}