Another Bushism, this one from the Financial Times, debunked, by my former student, Raffi Melkonian:

My favorite newspaper, the Financial Times, enjoys its forays into the land of Bush-isms . . . . Here’s today’s entirely misguided effort in the admittedly lighthearted “Observer” column:

Where’s the beef?

George W. Bush is proud of his “No Child Left Behind Act”. But one problem with the policy is it provides no help for children left behind years ago — like Bush himself.

In Minnesota on Monday, Bush did his best to show off his knowledge of geography and science: “I shared a story the other day during a press conference where I talked about a dinner I had with Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan. And we’re eating Kobe beef.”

So far, so good . . . until: “I don’t know whether it’s grown here in Minnesota or not, but it’s real good.”

Hold on Mr President, Kobe beef grown in Minnesota? It’s a good thing those Japanese cows can’t vote.

Of course, if the “Observer” had stopped revelling in his or her own intellectual superiority for more than a second, he or she would have noticed that Kobe beef may not be produced in Minnesota, but it definitely is in Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon, and a whole host of other states throughout the country. Yes, of course — true Wagyu Kobe is from Japan. But that’s neither what the President said or meant . . . .

     Good point; but what’s more, if you look at the transcript, it seems clear that the very reason Bush mentioned Kobe beef is that he knew that it’s originally a Japanese dish. The line is an aside in a speech that has nothing to do with beef. It’s obviously a little joke (not very funny, I realize) of the tie-the-story-to-this-occasion variety; there’s just no other possible explanation. Given this, why would Bush mention that he doesn’t know whether the beef is from Minnesota? Either it’s also a gag (these days, you can have Kobe beef from Minnesota just like you can have Chryslers assembled in some foreign country), or it’s another attempt to tie the story to the location. It’s certainly not confusion about whether Kobe beef is or is not originally Japanese.

     So another failure of the “Bushism” genre — a genre that’s prone more to showing errors on its authors’ part than on Bush’s part.

UPDATE: Two readers pointed out that the italicized “grown,” and the reference to “knowledge of . . . science” suggest that the Financial Times is making another point besides Kobe beef being Japanese — that beef isn’t grown but rather (presumably) raised. On reflection, I agree that the article must be making that point; but I missed it because it’s such a stretch. My New Shorter Oxford defines “grow” as, among other things, “produce (plants, fruit, wool, etc.) by cultivation,” which clearly covers animal products, and beef presumably as much as wool. The American Heritage defines “to raise” as one definition of “to grow.” A LEXIS search found a bunch of examples of “grow beef” (in Bush’s sense of raising cows, not just in the narrower sense of making cows bigger). There’s just nothing wrong with Bush’s statement.

FURTHER UPDATE: Reader Bruce Holder wisely suggests a google search for “beef growers,” which finds references to the the Natural Beef Grower’s Network, the Southern Beef Growers Cooperative, a headline in Iowa Farmer Today (it’s attached to an AP story, but I believe the headlines are typically written by the newspaper, not the wire service), and more.