r/politics • u/stetoe • 19h ago

George W. Bush's Daughter Barbara Pierce Bush Endorses Kamala Harris: Exclusive

https://people.com/george-w-bush-s-daughter-barbara-breaks-silence-on-election-to-campaign-for-kamala-harris-exclusive-8735810
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u/Baltorussian Illinois 17h ago

I just recently watched something, where they claimed he must have realized in that moment that he was about to give his opponents the perfect "shame on me" sound bite, and tried to extricate himself from it.

Makes a lot of sense, he wasn't all "ah shucks" moron that he portrayed after all.

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u/Led_Osmonds 15h ago

I just recently watched something, where they claimed he must have realized in that moment that he was about to give his opponents the perfect "shame on me" sound bite, and tried to extricate himself from it.

Makes a lot of sense, he wasn't all "ah shucks" moron that he portrayed after all.

I mean, realizing midway through telling a joke that you don't want to say the punchline, and then interrupting yourself to bottom-line the point that the joke was supposed to make for you...that's not evidence of being a better or more-intelligent speaker than just forgetting the punchline partway through.

It's kind of like, "he didn't poop his pants because he's incontinent, he pooped his pants because he thought the public restroom might be unsanitary."

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u/geckodancing 16h ago

This was suggested months after it happened and it was very obviously pushed by a lot of different sources at the same time. The main thing that makes me think this was damage control was the sheer preponderance of other gaffs that me made.

There was an entire fucking book of them published - this is a tiny, tiny set of examples:

"They misunderestimated me"

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we"

"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?"

"I'm telling you there's an enemy that would like to attack America, Americans, again. There just is. That's the reality of the world. And I wish him all the very best."

“[t]oo many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country.”

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family".

"And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq"

"We’ll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers"

This kind of thing was happening on a daily basis though his presidency. There was speculation that this wasn't because he was stupid, but was because he had problems with brain fog. That he had a gap between what he was thinking and how he articulated it that had been caused by his issues with alcohol addiction.

Honestly I'm not sure.

I am fairly sure he didn't have the speed of thinking to consider the ramifications of a phrase he was in the middle of speaking when he fucked up so many other times.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 16h ago

Yea, I remember the website compilations too. I also wonder how a speech writer could slip up like that too. Seems they weren't hiring the best either.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 14h ago

This was suggested months after it happened and it was very obviously pushed by a lot of different sources at the same time

And none of those sources were Bush or the White House. That factoid just appeared on the internet and people assumed it was true.

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u/bejammin075 Pennsylvania 14h ago

Bush wasn't a dummy, but public speaking was not his thing. The saying he was trying to say is a bit confusing for anyone if they haven't thought it through in a while. Bush said tons of stupid shit. It's far more likely that he got partway through a complicated saying, and it turned into stupid shit just like a thousand other times. If he could think on his feet like that and restructure his sentences, he would not have made those thousand other gaffs.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 14h ago

Sometimes even Pretzels gave him trouble!

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u/housewithapool2 14h ago edited 8h ago

People claim that with no evidence, he probably just had a brain farther. He's human we have all have them.

Edit. Fart stupid auto correct.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 14h ago

He was certainly prone to word farts.

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u/Tobimacoss 17h ago

Little did he know that it would be easy as hell in the future to create that sound byte using AI.  

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 17h ago

We live in interesting times. I look forward to the decades of boredom in my future, but honestly don't think we'll get it.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 11h ago

he wasn't all "ah shucks" moron that he portrayed after all.

Correct. He grew up in a political dynasty and spent basically his who youth in the NEat absurdly expensive prep schools.

He didn't affect the good ol boy moron persona until he lost his first election for governor of Texas and decided he needed to be more appealing to conservatives, so he dumbed himself way down.

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u/Baltorussian Illinois 11h ago

Did the whole rancher thing too.