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January 28, 2007
Andy Rooney, cheapshot artist
Andy Rooney's 60 Minutes commentary tonight was a classic Bush-is-an-idiot diatribe. My favorite cheap shot: Rooney saying "I wish the president would learn how to pronounce "nuclear."
Cue up the footage of last week's State of the Union address, with Pres. Bush saying "nuke-u-ler" twice.
Comments our cranky octogenarian, "Makes you wonder how he graduated from Yale."
Here's a question for you: Do you think Rooney ever lamented the inability of Pres. Carter to correctly pronounce "nuclear," as he wondered with a smirk how the ex-president graduated from the Naval Academy?
I didn't think so.
And it's not just Saint Jimmuh who gets a pass.
According to a post on Slate:
Bush isn't the only American president to lose the "nucular" war. In his "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine in May 2001, William Safire lamented that, besides Bush, at least three other presidents—Eisenhower, Carter, and Clinton—have mangled the word.
The Slate article also notes that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has listed the Bush/Carter/Clinton/Ike-preferred pronunciation as an acceptable alternative since 1961.
As for Rooney?
What a hack.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 28, 2007 07:56 PM
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