WASHINGTON — Inside the human brain, a part of the frontal lobe called Broca's area directs the production of clear and intelligible speech. In the case of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, however, something between Broca's area and the tongue has an occasional tendency to go comically wrong.
When Bush endeavors to say "tariffs and barriers," it can come out "terriers and bariffs." "Handcuffs" becomes "cuff links," and "tactical nuclear weapons" morphs into "tacular weapons." Once, Bush's brain cruelly caused him to pronounce "missile launches" as "mential losses."
The insensitive louts of the press generally respond to Bushspeak by poking fun. A TV producer on the Bush bus nicknamed him "The English Patient." Slate anthologizes the "Bushisms." (This week's installment: "I hope we get to the bottom of the answer.")
Yuk, yuk. Very funny.
Surely we wouldn't make fun of a man suffering from diabetic attacks or epileptic seizures. And though Bush's affliction isn't so serious, there's the possibility that he can't control it. We asked the opinions of leading speech pathologists. They haven't examined the man, but they have a few ideas.
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"It's a Verbal Goulash Syndrome," pronounces Sam Chwat, a New York speech therapist who has helped the likes of Julia Roberts and Robert DeNiro say their lines. Lyn Goldberg, a George Washington University speech pathologist, pronounces the governor "motorically vulnerable."
Clearly. When Bush attended Perseverance Month at a New Hampshire school, he famously declared: "This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You've got to preserve." Another time, he repeatedly insisted that "I denounce interracial dating." (He meant he denounced a policy against interracial dating.)
Part of the problem is not of his making: It's the fault of snobbish Easterners who just can't understand his West Texas dialect. Sure, he talks about "nucular" warheads, but so do many Southerners, including Jimmy Carter. So what if "obfuscate" rolls off Bush's lips as "obscufate" and "obsfucate"? They understand him just fine in Midland. Yet he continues "getting pillared in the press and cartoons," as he puts it, grasping for "pilloried."
Bush's aides say the malapropisms are the byproduct of an effervescent nature and an agile mind. Why the gobbledygook?
"Because his brain faster works than his mouth does," jokes Mindy Tucker, Bush's spokeswoman.
