Did He Really Say That?

By John F. Dickerson

When you've heard the same speech a hundred times, it's difficult to focus on what a candidate is saying. George Bush solved that problem by making each speech a fascinating opportunity for new language pileups. Some greatest hits: "I know how hard it is to put food on your family"; "I understand small-business growth. I was one"; "The most important job is not to be Governor, or first lady in my case." But the fun wasn't just limited to subject-verb mangling. More exciting still was his style. Occasionally he walked the stage hunched like a gunfighter, arms poised to pull his pistols. To punctuate a point, he'd sometimes squat and bow his arms as if he were trying to lift a water cooler. Or he'd poke the air like a man torturing an elevator button. And, boy, could he paint a wicked rhetorical picture. A particular favorite popped up at an energy-policy speech in Saginaw, Mich. Like most of his speeches important enough for a TelePrompTer, his emphasis track was unhooked from the actual text. Suddenly, a throwaway line got too much fancy sauce, making him sound as if he were declaring armistice at the end of a science-fiction movie: "The human being and the fish can coexist peacefully."

--By John F. Dickerson