When words get in the way, Bush gets phonetic on dat azz

I actually first learned of this story from the little news monitor on the elevator here; which is normally only good for the weather and the Cleveland Indians scores.

"So when Bush addressed the U.N. on Tuesday, the White House inadvertently showed exactly how -- with a phonetic pronunciation guide on the teleprompter to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.

The White House was left scrambling to explain after a marked-up draft of Bush's speech popped up briefly on the U.N. web site as he delivered his remarks, giving a
rare glimpse of the special guidance POTUS gets for major addresses. "

When I saw the headline "President George W Bush's phonetic teleprompter revealed", instinctively I thought "Wow, this guy is a true buffoon" but then I read further and the things they'd sounded out for him were pretty justified.

"It included phonetic spellings for French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee), and Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee), a target of U.S. human rights criticism.

Pronunciations were also provided for Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a) and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray)."

This is a great example of how bullshit travels and you've really gotta take everything with a grain of salt because just reading the headline "Bush's UN Speech Full of Fone-eh-tick ..." instantly evokes mental images of a teleprompter with words like "America" and "Iran" spelled out phonetically when in fact I take no issue with the words above and anyone that does is full of shit and just looking for another reason to bury Bush.

I'm not defending your boy Bush at all, at all; but sometimes I get sick of everyone burying the dude.

I believe in a united front; especially during a time of war. When it seems like an entire country hates their leader, a leader they elected into office, it just makes us look stupid to the rest of the world. This is the dude we put into office, never forget that, folks.