Stop them press thingies

ABC News has released the unexpurgated text of U.S. President George W. Bush’s speech to the U.N. Notable, as it turns out, is the fact that phonetic pronunciations of obscure words, countries, etc. are included for his mental convenience.

Think about the implications: His awesome rhetorical panache and entirely credible conviction aside, this transcript suggests that the man may not always know exactly what he’s talking about.

It would seem that the phonetic version was distributed accidentally. But the White House will no doubt claim that it was distributed, warts and all, in the name of total governamentable honestness and transparencemy.

Here’s a representative sample:

The government has cracked down on peaceful calls for reform, and forced millions to flee their homeland. The behavior of the Mugabe [moo-GAHbee] regime is an assault on its people – and an affront to the principles of the Universal Declaration. The United Nations must insist on change In Harare [hah-RAR-ray] – and freedom for the people of Zimbabwe.

In Sudan, innocent civilians are also suffering repression – and In the Darfur region, many are losing their lives to genocide. America has responded with tough sanctions against those responsible for the violence.

We have provided more than two billion dollars in humanitarian and peacekeeping aid. I look forward to attending a Security Council meeting that will focus on Darfur, chaired by French President Sarkozy [sar-KOzee].

More of the speech

The ABC story

Fuck dot me.