You mean, like, you know, like, how you know Hillary does?
A Tale of Two Press Conferences
When Harry Truman insisted that "the buck stops here," little did
he know he was setting the stage for the impeccable and
unimpeachable George W. Bush. By all accounts, the salvation
president has only one weakness: a tendency to commit a
grammatical error or two while speaking American English. So it
was that when he hosted his first news conference, the worst that
could be said about his performance was that, besides confusing
cocoa and coca, he used an incorrect pronoun when he said he and
his wife "are looking forward to having a private dinner with he
[i.e. Tony Blair] and Mrs. Blair."
Think of it as George W.'s broccoli moment. When his father said
he couldn't stand that vegetable, it led to a national
reassessment of its merits. And now that George W. has officially
used the wrong pronoun after a preposition, there's a good chance
that the nation will finally confront a major speaking impediment
that has become well nigh universal in American usage.
The odd thing is that anyone noticed. Every day in American
public speech we here someone say "between he and I" or "with she
and he" or "among we and they." Television announcers, especially
but not exclusively sports commentators, talk this way in their
sleep, and it trickles down from they, er, them. I've even heard
friends of mine reaching for the first-person nominative where a
direct object is called for. The damnedest thing about this
incorrect usage is that the user actually thinks a phrase like
"between he and I" makes him sound more proper than if he were
merely to settle for "between him and me." Maybe Tom Wolfe can
explain it.
Why suddenly go after Bush for sounding like a 100 percent
American? I recall his saying something similar during the post-
election, but no one much cared if only because the country faced
bigger political problems at the time. But consider the
Democrats' dilemma today. Nine years of Clinton criminality are
finally catching up with them, Bush is proving exceptionally
attractive, Gore is forgotten, and even Hugh Rodham appears to be
better physical shape than the Democratic Party. Bush haters will
take any opening Bush gives them, and at the moment they think
they've found it when Bush opens his mouth.
On Sunday, ultra-Democratic partisan Mary McGrory spent her
Washington Post column attacking Bush on the grammar front. It
particularly infuriated her that Bush purports to be "education
president" and "proclaims 'a passion for education.'" She
ridiculed his telling a teacher in Tennessee last week, "You
teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a
literacy test."
One could argue that "he or her" is a distinct improvement on
"dinner with he and Mrs. Blair." Obviously, true conservative
that Bush is, he can't quite bring himself to use the ghastly
"her or she" that the feminazis have imposed on American public
speech.
But McGrory was in no mood for light talk. Soon enough she
attempted to pile on Bush for the advice he said he'd give his
family members if they sought pardons: "My guidance to them is
behave yourself. And they will," Bush replied at this press
conference. "In two short sentences, he swung from the plural to
the singular and back to the plural," McGrory complained. She
must not read her own newspaper's transcripts, which published
the two short sentences as follows: "My guidance to them is,
'Behave yourself.' And they will." Give it literary context and
Bush's meaning couldn't be clearer.
That turns out to be his biggest sin. His first press conference
was a huge political success, beginning with his choice of the
briefing-room locale (which in effect put the pressies in their
place) and ending with the refreshing clarity he brought to his
remarks. "This is a town where if you don't increase the budget
by an expected number, it's considered a cut. We're going to slow
the rate of growth of the budget down." Has Alan Greenspan ever
said anything that smart?
The same day Bush held his press conference Hillary Clinton held
hers. It was everything Bush's wasn't. Where Bush was relaxed,
confident, and direct, Hillary was a nervous, obstructing,
repetitive wreck. And since she's not president, no one paid much
attention, to borrow McGrory's words, to the "heartburn"
Hillary's comments caused "language lovers."
But consider a typical Hillary reply from last Thursday: "Well,
you know, Tim, I hear so many rumors all the time that, you know,
I really -- you know ..." By my count, Hillary used "you know" at
least 70 times in her remarks, as illiterate term as exists in
the English language -- and coming out of Hillary's mouth, a
mendacious and stonewalling figure of speech that merely confirms
the speaker's inability or unwillingness to speak the truth.
Bush may have botched a pronoun, but he never once resorted to
the use of the "you know." His remarks were crisp and to the
point. Genuine linguistic vulgarity he leaves to others.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
--------------- Wlady Pleszczynski is executive editor of The
American Spectator.
spectator.org |
