Hey now, here’s something interesting
I just looked up the Washinton Post transcript of the second Presidential Debate because I wanted to see if I’d heard something correctly. Towards the end of the debate, Bush said “Saddam would still be in power if he [Kerry] were the president of the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.”
Now, clearly, Bush didn’t mean to say that the world would be a lot better off if Saddam were still in power; this was another “Bushism.” And it wouldn’t be worth much more than a sad smile if not for this: In the transcript, ironic quotation marks appear around the last part of that statement, like this:
Saddam would still be in power if he were the president of the United States, “And the world would be a lot better off.”
In other words, they make it appear that Bush was mockingly quoting something someone else (presumably Kerry) said. Can anyone think of any reason why they should assume that? Bush didn’t make the sign in the air with his fingers. And as best I remember, Kerry never said the world would be better off if Saddam was still in power (althought there’s a respectable argument to be made).
Is this a big deal? No, probably not. Most people are going to get their information about the debate either from the spin-meisters or watching it themselves.
But it’s definitely strange.
