Not quite a regret...

Coming up for air from the damn-the-torpedoes work load. It's still plenty busy, but not put-you-in-the-hospital busy. There's so much to get caught up on...

Did anyone see the story about Bush regretting the fact that he has no command of his native tongue? It's pretty funny. First there's this:

On July 2, 2003, two months after he had declared an end to major combat in Iraq, Bush promised U.S. forces would stay until the creation of a free government there. To those who would attack U.S. forces in an attempt to deter that mission, Bush said, "My answer is, Bring 'em on."

"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean," Bush said Thursday. "'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case."

And then he goes on to say maybe "wanted dead or alive" was a poor choice of words when talking about Bin Laden:

In the week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush was asked if he wanted bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the attacks, dead.

"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

Recalling that remark, Bush said Thursday: "I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, 'Why did you do that for?' I said, 'Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it.'

"I don't know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say. ... I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of the words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something."

In his second debate last year with presidential challenger Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), Bush was asked to name three instances in which he had made a wrong decision. At the time he declined to identify any specific mistakes.

I love the little AP dig at the end there. And I love that he quotes Laura as saying "Why did you do that for?"

You know, I taught English for years, and my students would say, "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" I used to explain things about critical thinking and learning how to think, not necessarily what to think. But now I know; the real answer is so that if you ever find yourself leader of the most powerful country in the world, you don't sound like a total dumbfuck.

And let's not forget, he's not the first Republican to regret saying dumb shit.