I may owe Mr. Bush an apology ...

I feel that it's important that I clarify some of what I started at the end of the previous posting. I possibly left you with the opinion that I was trying to put Mr. Bush down while looking like a really gracious guy. After all, I did include the cover of the Rolling Stones magazine sitting there at the bottom of the posting for all to view and then, after letting you smile at Bush with a dunce cap on, only suggested that GWB was really one schmartt cookie.

Not at all. That's not what was intended, not what I meant and certainly not what I want even my brother, Richard, to believe.

What can be said about W. is that he has a lot of public speaking quirks that make him endearing to some and appear dumber than a doorknob to others. Yes, he periodically slips-up with his verbiage and, thus, has created a new word in our wonderful English language: Bushisms. Most of them were spoken at times of stress and almost always when answering questions or otherwise speaking off the cuff, so to speak.

I empathize! I even scramble the letters within a single word. My students have learned to laugh politely when I go "bubledubblydubble" after tangling a word, a sentence or even a mathematical or scientific concept.

One thing that I particularly like about the way Mr. Bush answers questions, addresses issues and even (at times) tries to explains himself more clearly ... is that he gets directly to the point at issue and speaks from his heart. Someone once pointed out on Fox News that he comes from a Texan way of life that has as one of its main theses, "there are no easy answers, but there are often explanations or solutions that are simpler to grasp and implement" (or something like that). To an extent, that's probably how he views the situation in Iraq, and why it's so difficult for him to admit that he's wrong or has made a mistake ... as is obviously the case with the war ...… and now, occupation, in Iraq. Terrorism is truly a complex issue and we seem to have taken an unusually simple approach -- invade and occupy Iraq! -- even if Iraq was not a haven of the terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11.

I will gladly "give" Mr. Bush all the latitude in the world vis-a-vis his verbal gaffes if he sees the logic to the consistency of the wording of the two seemingly contradictory bumper stickers, "Support Our Troops!" and "Bring Them Home!"

He doesn't even have to admit making a mistake. He only has to say, "Mission Accomplished!" But whatever, BRING THEM HOME!! If he were to do that tomorrow, his poll numbers would be back above 50%!!!