Stop what you are doing because you, and everyone else on the freaking planet, needs to know this. Shock! Horror!
The President has a potty mouth because he used a foul four-letter word!
U.S. President G. W. Bush used a profane word during a conversation with a friend that was mistakenly transmitted to the press!
George Bush, former cocaine addict and alcoholic now turned Born Again Christian said a bad word that was fine to use during his early years but is absolutely taboo in his new life!
The President of the United States used an explicative, a naughty word, a non-Christian word, a word that Jesus would not approve of, while talking to an adult, who, while his conversations have not been captured on tape, probably uses four-letter words during his discussions with other adults too!
The President of the United States used a four-letter word derived from shipping materials that were prone to internally combust if stored at the bottom of sea vessels during long voyages. "Ship high in transit" was eventually truncated into the four-letter word that George Bush, Leader of the Free World, said to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of England while sharing his frustrations with events in the Middle East! A founding partner in the Coalition of the Willing, the leader of a member country of NATO, the G8 Summit, and the United Nations used a cuss word!
Meanwhile, the Pope ate a cheese sandwich and somewhere Dan Rather cried!
The apocalypse is upon us!
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Wars are breaking out all over the world and CNN thinks Bush saying a certain word is news-worthy. Our attentions are spread way too thin.
Sweet Fancy Moses!
Well... I never! The very idea that a person would use a common explicative such as that -- and a Texan to boot. Man alive! The reign of Satan is truly upon us. Thank the Heavens for the fine folks in our media to point this out to the unknowing public. Without them, we would surely be lost.
Blimey. Someone will tell us Janet jackson has nipples, next. I wonder how soon it is before this 'scandal' is called Shitgate?
I have to wonder whether or not Jesus would care - I've never found swearing in foreign languages all that offensive. I imagine he'd have had to say it in Aramaic to really offend Jesus.
How do you say asshat in Aramaic?
I really like that the problem is not that Bush seems to think that Syria is autonomously able to rein in Hezbollah, nor that he views "sending Condi" as a panacea for the area, but rather that he used a curse-word.
Incompetance and naïveté? No problem.
Blue language? A scandal.
You mean George Bush is human? Oh no!
As a devout Christian, I could care less what you say as long as it doesn't involve God. Every so often a situation comes along where a "f*** that" is the only succint summarization of your opinion. This would be one such case.
Man that Bush guy is such a flip flopper, it really bothers me.
How come this became breaking news on CNN speaks volumes at where our values stand. We couldn't care less about Israel blowing up Palestinian asses but get all hot and bothered because of our beloved Dubya uttering the s-word in public. Oh, the horror, the horror.
Actually, this shouldn't surprise anyone. There was a very similar incident during his first presidential campaign when a mic he thought was off captured him commenting to Dick Cheney that a certain reporter was an a**hole.
Also, Optimus, I don't see either of those opinions in the transcript that I read of Bush's comments to Blair. Perhaps he said those things elsewhere?
The response i've heard hasn't been so much uproar or shock, as much as just humor. He said "shit" and some other kid of crass comments, and a mic caught it. It's funny. If anyone's taking it beyond that, they're kneejerking.
Groping the German Chancellor on the other hand, is not quite as funny.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/07/18/presidential-groping/
Greg, love the post, but the "ship high in transit" story is a false etymology. Just thought you should know.
The world is falling down around our ears, and we're being innundated with the President's foul mouth. Funny there's no mention of the Isreal/Hezbollah situation (potentially) escalating into World War III, which could happen (exactly) if the rest of the world doesn't quit sitting on its hands. Where was CNN on that one?...
I am glad I am beyond caring about this sorta thing.
I was so hacked off at what a big deal was being made by this last night. ABC News was having a heyday on this one.
I'm sure Jesus could care less that Bush uttered shit at this juncture (or at any juncture for that matter). In fact, Jesus might think that what is going on in the Middle East is pretty shitty right now.
Prime Minister of England
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom unfortunately, like you wouldn't say George Bush, President of California, or Jacques Chirac, President of Normandy.
Well, you might, but it would be strange.
Picky, picky, picky!
Amazing, the profane yet puritanical culture we live in. His misuse of the word "irony" was far more upsetting.
ma che merda ... What's next a Bush and his beaver?
James:
Bush: You see, the ... thing is what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this crap and it's over.
Bush: I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Clearly, Bush's view is that Syria and al-Assad are capable of unilaterally forcing Hezbollah's hand.
I bet Bush's favorite song is "Foxtrot Unicorn Charlie Kilo" by the Bloodhound Gang.
We finally have proof that he's a terrible president!
Was it the curse that made this so compelling, or the rare glimpse of what Bush really thinks and his relationship with Blair? I thought the latter, but I could be wrong.
A show of hands, who thought our president was perfect? Anyone?
I can't believe he talks with his mouth full. To the high lord of Britain, at that! The vapors!
BU**
SH**
> Also, Optimus, I don't see either of those opinions in the transcript that
Check the transcript, those opinions are there. And then this was announced shortly afterwards.
Blake - Yet here we all are making our comments.
Jeff Koke - It is my understanding that originally the word SH*T was not profane. I believe it was a term used during the Middle Ages that was either thought to be too vulgar by the nobility or too telling of one's social class. This is the only thing I retained from British Literature in High School, so it has to be TRUE.
Um, that should likely be expletive, and not explicative
(hmmm, I wonder what happens if I double up on the asshat tags...)
I think as Kottke reports, the Apocolypse really is upon us! Rock on!
*yawn* When Bush publicly throttles someone let me know. Until then he's simply small bananas.
I dunno, seems to me like every person who voted for Bush should feel a tad silly right now. The guy is clearly incompetent. If I talked with my clients and professional peers in this kind of casual manner, even the ones that are friends of mine, they'd think I was an idiot (or some kind of asshat). And they'd be right.
B*sh happens.
"Shit" descends from either old Angle or Saxon--can't remember which specifically--skite is one of the earliest written words we assume shit descended from.
But vulgarity has a long and wonderful history in English. I recently had a discussion with an acquaintance who believed shows like "Deadwood" were ahistorical mostly because of their reliance on profanity, when, if you really want to get down to it, we have an extraordinary tome of evidence in the form of The Canterbury Tales.
Read it in its original language and you'll learn new things about England that you hadn't thought of before (the city of Kent, I'm looking at you).
"*yawn*" and "B*sh happens" ... f u n n y ! had a good belly laugh.
sorry Justin, mentioning that Bush wants to send his top foriegn policy official to deal with a foreign policy issue does not mean that he thinks it will be "a panacea" If he thought that then there would be no more to the conversation, no need for Annan or Syria to be involved. Condi cures all. As far as the Syria part of it, anyone who doesn't think that Syria has influence on Hezzbolah is the one who is naive and ignorant.
Who are George Bush and Tony Blair?
The only people I hear about in the media are these people named Nick, Jessica, Brad and Angelina.
Y'know, you don't need to paint all Christians with the same brush.
Thank goodness nobody's talking about the rest of the contents of the conversation!
Oddly, we saw Wag the Dog on HBO a few days prior to this whole affair, and my sister mentioned that she thought that the Bush spin doctors, after realizing what had happened, had forced all the commotion onto the use of the word 'shit' to make sure nobody paid any attention to the actual conversation itself.