Another Dyslexicon Moment

And so people don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America.

-- George Bush, Cabinet Meeting, Feb. 23, 2006

When I first saw this I thought, that's it, game over. The jig is up. Bush has finally admitted what has been suspected for so long. Of course, all I saw was the quote and not the context, which quickly made it clear that this was just another muddled oral emission from a man who seems barely in control of his verbal faculties.

But the meaning is entirely unclear, even when you do understand the context, and could easily be interpreted in two exactly opposite ways. One, Bush really doesn't give a rat's ass about security and, by God, the deal will go through or, two, if there was a security concern the deal would sink. Given that this was said in a more or less public venue, I doubt Bush would actually intend to say the former. But, of course, that doesn't necessarily imply that he didn't mean it anyway. Bush does have a habit of doing that.

This maladriot slip is something that Mark Miller addressed extensively in The Bush Dyslexicon; that Bush, at times, has a tendency to say things that might actually be his inner most thoughts, such as they are. And this latest example is far more ambiguous than many of his previous and uncontrolled utterances. Who can ever forget this ol' beauty:

They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

That one still remains top of the dyslexicon charts as far as I'm concerned.