“The United States and the U.S. stand together in support of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi government, which will soon come into action.” — Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005
Except that the transcript (which Slate of course doesn’t link to) seems to reveal the broader context to be:
PRESIDENT JUNCKER: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. . . .
As regards Iraq, we applauded the courage of the Iraqi people and the results of recent Iraqi elections, as far as the out-turn was concerned. We are pursuing our common engagement in Iraq. The United States and the U.S. [sic] stand together in support of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi government, which will soon come into action. To that end, should the new Iraqi government request it, the United States and European Union are prepared to co-host an international conference to provide a forum to encourage and coordinate international support for Iraq. . . .
I leave this to the President of the U.S.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Prime Minister, thanks. . . .
Yup, it seems like today’s Bushism wasn’t said by President Bush, but rather by European Council President Jean-Claude Juncker (who is also the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, hence the honorific that President Bush gave him) — or, I suspect, by the translator. I checked all the transcripts I could find on LEXIS, and none attributed this to Bush; all attributed it to Juncker, except one that attributed to an otherwise unidentified “Scheffer,” likely an error.
Am I missing something here? Or is this yet another flub, much like the one on Feb. 10? That one was at least based on an erroneous transcript (though the error could have been caught had someone did a quick search to see what other transcripts said, or listened to the audio file). This one seems to be based on an erroneous reading of the transcript.
Many thanks to two readers, one anonymous and the other Kennan Shelton, who alerted me to this.
UPDATE: Slate has put up a correction at the top of today’s Bushism, acknowledging that the statement was made by Juncker. This seemingly happened just a few minutes ago (roughly 3 pm Pacific).
FURTHER UPDATE: Stuart Buck coins the word “Slatenfreude.”
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: It turns out that OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web had busted Bushisms for exactly the same error a couple of years ago:
[Today’s “Bushism of the day”]:
“I would like to express my deep condolences for the loss of the Senate.”–Commenting on Sen. Paul Wellstone’s death, Crawford, Texas, Oct. 25, 2002
Now, let’s go to the transcript, which is of a joint appearance with Bush and China’s President Jiang Zemin. It begins with Bush speaking:
Thank you for coming, President Jiang.
PRESIDENT JIANG: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. I just learned that one plane crashed. I would like to express my deep condolences for the loss of the Senate. And also I would like to express my condolences to the bereaved family.
Slate‘s correction is here.
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