After all, Europe is America’s closest ally.
What’s at all funny, odd, or otherwise Bushism-worthy here? There are only two conceivable objections I can imagine here.
1. Bush is talking about “Europe” as an ally instead of particular European countries. Yet Europe, in the sense of the European Union, is indeed an entity of its own. And the European Union is often referred to as Europe.
But of course Bush couldn’t have possibly meant Europe in the sense of European Union (or for that matter Europe as a cultural grouping of countries), because . . . . Because why exactly? Because Texans aren’t up on modern transnational organizations? Well, let me give you the context, since of course Slate never gives you the context, or even a pointer to the context. (And who can blame it? After all, while Web sites like ours can provide links to the full transcripts, to assure people that the quotes are in context, old-fashioned paper-based media like Slate don’t have that luxury. Oh, wait . . . .)
Here’s the transcript containing the “Bushism” but also the following sentences:
After all, Europe is America’s closest ally. I said yesterday, and I want to say it again: The European project is important to our country. We want it to succeed. And in order for Europe to be a strong, viable partner, Germany must be strong and viable, as well. And in order for us to have good relations with Europe, we must have good relations with Germany. And that is why this trip is an important trip for my country and for me.
And so I want to thank you very much for the chance to be here, a chance to reconfirm the importance of the transatlantic alliance, and a chance to talk about important issues. Gerhard went over the issues; I will go over them briefly, as well. . . .
No Europhile — or for that matter non-Europhile urban articulate sophisticate — could have said it better: Alliance with Europe, the European project, good relations with Europe, transatlantic alliance.
2. The one possible other objection is that our relations with Europe aren’t so hot in some respects now. Yet surely saying that Europe is our closest ally is just the time-honored and quite reasonable diplomatic trope of talking about aspirations of friendship as reality. That’s only a “Bushism” if “Bushism” means “A statement characterized by excessive diplomacy.”
So what’s up here? How could the editor of a major publication, a publication that aspires to being seen as witty but thoughtful and credible, mock someone for a perfectly normal statement like this — and mock him with no further explanation and commentary, as if the statement were so obviously silly that no explanation was required?
UPDATE: A reader writes:
Bushism of the Day may be signalling a sea-change in the Left from regarding Bush as stupid stupid stupid to ironic.
Bush’s stating that Europe is our closest ally isn’t evidence of his inarticulate nature, but perhaps the statement has an ironic value inasmuch as Bush’s policies are cause for the recent rift, at least from BOTD’s point of view.
Huh — I hadn’t even thought of that, partly because it’s so unrelated to what Bushisms have supposedly been about, and what Jacob Weisberg has said they’re about, in this Bush-loathing introduction to one of his Bushisms books. So I remain puzzled: What’s so “Bushism” about President Bush’s clear, grammatically and semantically unobjectionable, and diplomatic statement? Though, hey, if Weisberg wants “Bushism” to come to mean “a clear, grammatically and semantically unbobjectionable, and diplomatic statement,” that’s fine by me.
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