Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Bushism of the Day:
[1]Slate's Bushism of the Day for today is:
"Listen, the other day I was asked about the National Intelligence
Estimate, which is a National Intelligence Estimate." --
Washington, D.C., Sep. 23, 2004
Ha ha ha. That President of ours, he's such a doofus. Why would he say
"about the National Intelligence Estimate, which is a National
Intelligence Estimate"? Hard to believe, but there it is. Or, wait a
minute, maybe because it's hard to believe, we should double-check
before believing it, no? That is, unless we're so wedded to the "Bush
Talks Funny" meme that we've relaxed our normal skepticism and
journalistic caution.
Fortunately, reader Jacob Kaufman's skepticism and caution hadn't
relaxed, so he found [2]the White House transcript (remember, Slate's
Bushism of the Day column never includes pointers to the transcripts).
That site happens to have the [3]audio. And the audio, at a little
after 30:54, shows that Bush said:
Listen, the other day I was asked about the NIE, which is a
National Intelligence Estimate.
Yup, that's right. President Bush used the abbreviation, and then
explained what the abbreviation meant. The official transcript
erroneously spelled out the abbreviation, though it rendered it in all
caps, which -- together with the improbability of the President's just
saying "the National Intelligence Estimate, which is the National
Intelligence Estimate" -- might have led a cautious journalist to
check into it:
Listen, the other day I was asked about the NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
ESTIMATE, which is a National Intelligence Estimate.
A cautious journalist might also have checked what other sources say.
A quick LEXIS search for "Listen, the other day I was asked about the"
revealed 10 references, of which 8 contained the term "NIE," and 2
contained "NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE" (again, in all caps). But
apparently the author of the Bushisms column didn't do this check; if
he had, then maybe he would have realized that he should try to find
the audio, which would have settled the matter.
As I've said before, part of the problem with the Bushisms column is
that they often fault the President for things that aren't much worth
faulting. But the broader problem is that once a journalist gets into
the mindset of "Let me catch Bush misspeaking," it's very easy to
start seeing errors where no errors exist. Instead of the normal
"Someone says Bush erred, so let's investigate this skeptically" view
that journalists should have, the author falls into the habit of
assuming that all claimed Bush misstatements are in fact
misstatements. And the consequence is screw-ups like this. Shouldn't
we expect better from the editor of a leading magazine?
References
1. http://slate.com/id/2113344/
2. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040923-8.html
3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040923-8.a.ram
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