Who cares? Wires and blogs and commentators are atwitter at what the AP called President Bush's, "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the Sydney Opera House.
The problem? Verbal gaffes - saying OPEC instead of APEC and Austria instead of Australia. Oh, and going out the wrong door.
Yeah, that all stinks. But who cares. Can we please, please, please stop focusing on the trivial and start focusing on what matters? These gaffes are so trivial and say nothing about anything. Let's all count how many times today we say, "Oops, I meant to say...." I'm already up to three and I haven't talked to anyone yet.
Substance por favor.
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OK, Patient Witness, I agree with your conclusion, but shouldn't a candidate's intelligence, knowledge of history, intentions thoughtfulness and so on also be given more weight than his gaffes? Granted, there's no comfort for the President in that, but isn't confusing Australia with Austria less important than the administrations assorted and sordid other failures?
Too many of the President's assorted other failures are a product of his insular world view, which was on display in Sydney.
Carelessness, an attitude of callousness to detail and responsibility, is the great sin and reason for downfall of the careerist in F.S. Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby".
Hi Doug,
That's a good point. I'd bet that almost every one of us has made plenty of verbal gaffes like that; I know I do. And yes, a leader's real mistakes and the real successes should be the main focus instead of little miscues. Which makes me ask myself why I took such delight in reading about Bush's little mistakes here. After all, I'm a Texan, was here when Bush was governor, knew he was a lunkhead back then. Maybe Bush just reminds me of my dad. Perhaps I'd better grab a cigar and re-read some Freud.
I'm joking, Doug, but just a little. You did give me something to think about.
And again I also agree with Heraldblog. Bush does seem to have a quite limited and indeed black-and-white view of the world and its goings-on. It seems to me that he's had only 2 periods of success in his various careers. As Texas' governor, he had very limited responsibility. The real leader of the state is the Lt. Gov. who, under Bush, was a Democrat. And Bush was quite liked by many who saw him as affable and harmless.
His other main success was in buying part of the Texas Rangers baseball club and reaping substantial rewards as his investment grew. Now, some say that he bought in with some under-the-table dealings but the point is he made a nice fortune. How? By doing nothing. He let those who knew the business run the team while he enjoyed the games.
So the two periods in his career which are viewed as successes are when he was a figurehead, friendly but not too bright, someone who could cash in on his dad's connections to help the team. Will history judge Bush's worst mistake as President to be surrounding himself with the wrong people?
David,
You'll get "substance" from your comboxers when you get any from yer "president". he can go first.
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