A Simpleton Kind of Man: Bush's Illiteracy is no longer a laughing matter

At a bill signing ceremony in the White House on August 5, George Bush pulled off his latest verbal gaffe. Captured on film and shown worldwide, as well as on Jay Leno, Bush remarked with his patented smirk, "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."  The same day I read this, I had just finished an article by Charley Reese, Vote for a Man, Not a Puppet, written in May. Reese, a staunch conservative and formerly a columnist with the Orlando Sentinel, writes, "It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own president at their joint press conference recently." Jay Leno joked recently that hearing Bill Clinton during the Democratic convention "made you nostalgic for a time when presidents could speak." Last April, the Los Angeles Times published a letter from a 73 year-old woman, Phyllis Lilly, of Ridgecrest, California. No one could have captured any better the essence of our hapless president than Ms. Lilly when she wrote, "I watched President Bush's April 13 press conference. In my 73 years, I have never seen or heard such stumbling, bumbling ignorance by an American president. He never fully answered one question and deliberately rambled on in order to kill time and answer fewer questions. This illiterate man is an embarrassment to our country." And mind you, these are not the words of one of those "pointy-headed liberal intellectual elites." [more]