Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Bushism of the Day:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_09_23-2007_09_29.shtml#1191028312
[My adversary] has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to
justice.
Funny, no? Another example of the President's accidental wit and
wisdom.
Whoops, sorry: That's from a written statement by [1]Speaker Pelosi's
office on July 2, condemning President Bush's commutation of Scooter
Libby's sentence. The [2]Bushism of the Day, from oral remarks by
President Bush, is
All of us in America want there to be fairness when it comes to
justice.
Neither, of course, is terribly eloquent, but neither is particularly
laughable. The supposed humor, I take it, stems from the fact that
fairness and justice are synonyms, so the statement is supposedly
tautological. But it's clear that "justice" in both quotes means not
just "fairness" but "the operation of the justice system." (Bush was
speaking of the Jena, Louisiana prosecutions.) Nothing particularly
noteworthy, it seems to me, in someone's saying something like this,
especially in an extemporaneous oral response to a question.
References
1. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=543
2. http://www.slate.com/id/2174973/
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