taylor on safire on clinton

[Paul Frank]

> From Charles Taylor's farewell to Clinton in today's Salon.com:
>
> "An esthetic Southerner like Jimmy Carter was acceptable as
> president. But a
> gregarious one of obvious (and hidden) appetites just had to be Lil' Abner
> playing dress-up. Here's William Safire a few weeks ago in the New York
> Times Magazine, talking about what he'll miss most about Clinton: "The
> Ozarkian's free-and-easy use of the American idiom." In other words, those
> hicks may not know how to speak English, but they sure are cute when they
> try. Imagine something similar being written about a black president. (And
> try to imagine taking language instruction from a former Nixon
> speechwriter.)"
>
> M Lynne Murphy

Has Safire commented on George W. Bush's almost daily assaults on the
English language? Here is the latest:

"I want it to be said that the Bush administration was a results-oriented
administration, because I believe the results of focusing our attention and
energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's
responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system
that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be—a more
literate country and a hopefuller country."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2001

Slate magazine has a long list of Bushisms:
http://slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp

Paul
_______________________________________________
Paul Frank
Business, financial and legal translation from German, French,
Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch into English
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu | Thollon, Haute-Savoie, France