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I n the grand old days, the idea of teasing a president was unthinkable . criticize, yes, making fun of him, no. George Washington received plenty of criticism from people who opposed his policies, but it never occurred to them to make fun of the way he walked, talked, and dressed. the same with thomas Jefferson. teasing some presidents —andrew Jackson, for one—might have proved dangerous. teasing abraham lincoln might have worked, but brickbats were better. People might not have liked Woodrow Wilson, but they didn’t go in for any teasing. it wasn’t until the 1970s, in fact, that the media began finding good copy in reporting the stumbles, bumbles, and gaffes our presidents produced. Gerald Ford was the first target. When he slipped while descending the steps from a plane, with an umbrella in one hand and his wife’s hand in the other, the newsmen reported it with zest and verve. since no one was hurt in the fall, it became a legitimate show-off piece for bored reporters. after Ford’s first slip, he couldn’t seem to make any little misstep without having it featured on the news. chevy chase devoted his tV show to teasing Ford about his clumsiness, and, to calm people down, Ford deliberately appeared on the show and pretended to be awkward and clumsy every time he turned around. But Ford’s little parody didn’t stop the silly reporting. Jimmy carter, following Ford as president, became an object for laughter, too, but for quite different reasons. during the campaign of 1976, carter emerged as something of a pious goody-goody, not a reg’lar guy, to many people, and he felt obliged to do something to appear more likable. to solve his problem, he agreed to an interview Bush-Speak CHAPTER 22 175 176 Bush-Speak with one of the writers at Playboy, the sexy men’s magazine. some of the questions carter answered were sensible enough, but when the interrogator got around to asking him about sex, he seems to have lost his head. he was a tough guy, not a softie, he wanted to prove. although happily married, he said, he lusted in his heart for pretty women, even though the Bible condemned it. in addition, he was such a good guy that he refrained from going around denouncing regular guys who played around with women outside marriage. he even used the word “screw” at one point in the interview, leading a prominent Baptist minister to announce sternly that “screw” was not a Baptist word. the reporters had a field day with carter’s interview. they even composed a little ditty about “lusting in the heart” to sing whenever there were carterites around. When it came to ronald reagan, carter’s successor in the White house, the newsmen didn’t have much about him to tease. a professional hollywood actor, reagan knew how to stay in control of things when he met with reporters. he happened to be the oldest president up to that time, but he did the teasing himself, about himself. sometimes he would mention having chatted with Jefferson and some of the other Founding Fathers in the old days. With reagan’s successor, George herbert Walker Bush, however, the fun began again. Bush lacked reagan’s panache when speaking informally on his own, and he had a way of unintentionally mangling the English language as he went along. his language trips and slips became so common that new york times columnist Maureen dowd began calling his utterances “Bush-speak.” years later, his son George W. became known for his sloppy mispronunciations when he was in the White house, but his father’s slips were far more entertaining. in 1992, i gave a talk on “Presidential Prose” at the annual meeting of the texas institute of letters, dealing with the best prose (Jefferson, lincoln) and the worst (harding, George h. W. Bush). My exposition of Papa Bush’s prose produced such hilarity in the audience that i decided to write a separate piece on Bush-speak. H H H “You can tell these Yale men—articulate devils, you know!”—President Bush, chatting with members of the Young Astronaut Society. Jan. 24. 1992 George herbert Walker Bush is famous for his gaffes. But he isn’t the only president of the united states to achieve such fame. Jerry Ford once referred to california’s s. i. hayakawa as “hiawatha” in a convention speech. Jimmy carter called...

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