Weisbergism of the Day:

Here’s today’s Bush quote in Slate‘s Bushism of the Day, selected by Slate‘s editor, Jacob Weisberg:

“My job is to, like, think beyond the immediate.” — Washington, D.C., April 21, 2004

Here’s a transcript of MSNBC Hardball, Dec. 30, 2003:

WEISBERG: But I think a bigger problem is really where [Dean] is politically. You know, right of the point we are in the campaign where he is close to being the nominee apparent, I would be — I would think he would be reaching as hard and as quickly as he could for the center to try to moderate some of these extreme-sounding positions he has taken on the war and a bunch of other issues.

And here’s one of Hannity & Colmes, Dec. 1, 1999:

WEISBERG: I think you’re applying a little right-wing political correctness here. I mean, it’s maybe an injudicious expression, but I don’t think it adds up to anything, other than her making the point that political campaigns have traditionally been run by white men, not by black women, and that, you know, it’s a first, it’s like the first time (inaudible)… black mayor was elected in the city. I don’t think it’s a racist comment.

Here’s one of NPR, Nov. 30, 2000:

Mr. WEISBERG: I think we are getting there in the last week of the campaign. You know, the first point to make about these Bush response ads is the one I think you were just getting at a second ago where you say don’t actually respond to this Gore charge about the trillion dollars of Social Security money. . . . What he’s hoping to do is change the debate from the issue to Gore’s character and saying, in effect, in these ads, you know, ‘You can’t believe anything this guy says, so why would you believe this?’ And that second ad does it in a sort of sarcastic way.

From CNN’s Greenfield at Large, Aug. 6, 2001:

WEISBERG: Well, there is a little bit of a popular strain that says, you know, we have less to fear from an unintelligent President than from a highly intelligence president. He can’t do as much to us if he wants to.

ABC News, June 30, 2002:

Mr. WEISBERG: But, you know, George, in some ways, I mean, the–the resistant to voucher choice has, I think, led people to believe that it’s more of a solution than it is. . . . [“Resistant” may well be a transcription error. — ed.]

Now I’m not trying to claim that Weisberg is generally inarticulate. His “you know”s, like some people’s “like”s, are commonplace in people’s conversations. Our oral comments are full of this sort of filler, and of grammar and usage errors of various sorts. Nearly anyone who has read a transcript of his own comments can tell you that.

     But given that articulate, thoughtful people like Weisberg say these sorts of things, where’s the humor, the aptness, or anything else in finding instances of Bush doing the same?

UPDATE: Mark Liberman (Language Log), a linguistics professor at Penn, agrees.