Tristero over at Hullabaloo has deconstructed Bush’s seemingly inscrutable statement to a German reporter last Friday that the best moment of his presidency was the time he caught a seven-and-a-half pound fish.
Initial news reports called it a perch, which smelled fishy to tristero, since American perch don’t get that big.
Now, however, the White House has released the official transcript of the interview, and apparently what Bush really said was “large mouth bass” (which, when translated into German and back, came out as ‘perch’).
Tristero’s analysis of the deeper meaning of Bush’s remark is pretty good. He says it’s evidence that Bush is depressed, or bored, or arrogant, or some combination thereof. He entertains but rejects the possibility that the episode merely illustrates what a good ol’ boy Bush is. But I’m not so sure about that. Good ol’ boys are pretty stupid. When Bush is given a question he hasn’t been prepped for, he’s really at a loss. It’s like the time he was asked what his biggest mistake was. That question was not in his script. He ended up saying that he was confident that he had made a mistake, but he just couldn’t think of what it was. This time, his flailing mind did a little better and managed to latch onto that fish. Thank god he didn’t say that his best moment was when he hit the trifecta.
I think you scored a trifecta here yourself by using such a pun-delicious combination of phrases like “large mouth bass”, “fishy smell” and “the best moment of my presidency” all within one post.
Gee thanks, topazz!
But don’t give me too much credit. Covering Bush the material pretty much writes itself.
Is a 7 pound bass really all that impressive? It’s big to be sure, but that’s the highlight of his presidency?
Thanks for setting the record straight on this. It’s funny what can happen when dealing with multiple translations.
The funny thing is, I’m sure there are millions of people who also feel that’s been the highlight of his presidency.
Bush couldn’t admit 9/11 was the best moment of his coup-empowered preznitcy. Osama gave him the only credibility he ever had.
Bush did less than nothing to arrive at the ~90% approval rating after 9/11. The weasel should be cooling his heels in federal prison for lying us into war. His fish story lie is small fare, why beat it to death?