Bush trips over Abu Ghraib pronunciation

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24619745.htm

CARLISLE, Pa., May 24 (Reuters) - Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech on Monday were not enough to keep U.S. President George W. Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

During the half-hour televised address, Bush mispronounced Abu Ghraib each of the three times he mentioned it while announcing U.S. plans to tear down the infamous jail and replace it with a new facility.

The prison, the scene of torture under Saddam Hussein and the setting for the Iraqi prison abuse scandal under the U.S. military, has a name that English speakers usually pronounce as "abu-grabe".

But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it "abugah-rayp". The second version came out "abu-garon", the third attempt sounded like "abu-garah".

more

[otohara]

1. No Wonder He Wants To Demolish It

so he won't have to say the name ever again. What a dummy!

[arwalden]

65. LOL...

Your response is priceless! Thanks for the laugh.

-- Allen

[abandapart21]

94. Brillant!!

These kind of jokes never get old. He is a moron.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

2. What an effin' nimrod

God, what did we do to deserve being saddled with such a moron as our President?

[benburch]

5. What did we do?

We failed to take to the streets to prevent the theft of Florida.

[burrowowl]

26. Amen! eom

[MnFats]

88. With apologies to Pete townsend....

"We won't get fooled again!"

[al bupp]

6. Publically Financed Campaigns

C'mon, you know he's the best president that money can buy.

[Eurobabe]

62. numbnuts!

[BrotherBuzz]

3. I mispronounce a ton of words...

but I don't pretend to be president....

I can't wait until November

[frylock]

4. abugah-rayp?

home of Saddam's rayp rooms.

[MO_Dem]

11. aka

aka Bush's rayp rooms, now.

[LizW]

7. Groan

How hard could it be? How hard could it be to read a speech off a teleprompter and remember how they told you to pronounce the names?

I've read two theories about Bush's speaking difficulties. One is that it's an act, that he's playing dumb to appeal to the people who like that sort of thing. The other is that he does actually have some sort of disorder that affects his ability to read and verbalize. Either way, it's freaking embarrassing.

[yardwork]

25. Why didn't his handlers spell it phonetically on the teleprompter?

Geez. These guys couldn't find their way out of a paper bag.

[Mokito]

82. Then read about the Mark Crispin Miller-theory

That's the really frightening one!

[Supormom]

8. Is it true ...

they plan to replace it with a Walmart?
;)

[playahata1]

21. No. It's going to be replaced with a TARGET.

:)

[CatWoman]

9. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Can you feel it?????

This is being reported!!!!!!

I noticed it right off, but didn't start a thread (there were about 30 going already).

This is great shit!!!!

Chimpy is going DOWN!!!!!

[BrotherBuzz]

13. Yeah, can't scrub the transcripts, now!

Woo hoo!

[belladonna]

18. Absolutely!!

I'm SO happy to see that this is being REPORTED and not swept under the rug anymore.

[Cocoa]

77. they've been ignoring this stuff for four years

If the press is going to accurately report his moronitude this election, he's toast.

[Lefta Dissenter]

10. If I'm not mistaken,

he also made reference to the Calvary, when, of course, he meant cavalry. :eyes:

[mazzarro]

55. I think he knowingly used the word "calvary"

because he still believes in bring religiosity into the government - thus he finds ways to pepper his official speeches and activities with near-religious words.

[punpirate]

12. Nothing like the leader of the free world...

... still getting "F"s in geography.... The US runs the place, doesn't it?

And, no mention that this business of tearing down Abu Ghraib is yet another afterthought. As I recall, the building was heavily bombed during the invasion, but the US, in its haste to have jail facilities, rebuilt it and added on to it. Someone with a bit more cultural savvy would have won friends by bulldozing it down after doing a search for evidence in future war crimes trials. Now, tearing it down will seem to the Iraqis that we're trying to hide evidence.

[LibLabUK]

58. "the leader of the free world..."

Dear US citizens of voting age,

We have recently held a meeting and we decided that we would like a new leader please.

In November would you be kind enough to grant our wish...

Many thanks in advance.

Yours sincerely,
The Free World

;)

[AspenRose]

14. That's an understatement

"But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses..."

Those aren't the only lapses he's known for.

Lapses in judgment....lapses in common sense....lapses in compassion...lapses in telling the truth....

[NewYorkerfromMass]

73. and apparently lapses in consciousness

hence the ugly, scraped up face.

[PfcHammer]

15. I was waiting for Abu Daba Doo. Ruh-Roh !

[Neecy]

29. you're the winner!

That's the funniest post I've seen all week.

Hey, if you don't laugh at this clownish buffoon of a 'leader', you'd have to weep.

[chookie]

71. ha ha ha ha ha!

Thank you for a delightful yuk in these grim times.

Sorry I can't stick around now -- I have to go clean nasally-launched coffee off my monitor.

[Fridays Child]

16. Too busy feigning expressions of concern and horror to worry about...

...the proper pronunciation. If they had allowed him to grin and leer while talking about Abu Ghraib, he would have pronounced the name correctly.

[Charles19]

17. Kind of sad yet inspiring

for all the illiterate's, non native English speakers and all people with speech problems to know that no matter what skills you lack or hurdles you need to get over with enough money, corporate friends and maybe a governor as your brother you too can be President of the United States.

[burrowowl]

28. Welcome to DU, Charles 19!

I wonder if someone competent can be elected president at this point?

[saracat]

53. Uh! Non natives can't

be elected President.Yet. But Arnold keeps hoping!

[KC21304]

19. I was not watching his lips, but I thought I heard

him say " our emanies "

[napi21]

33. I couldn't stand to watch much, but I flipped to him during

commercials. I missed the mispronounciation of the prison, but the little I saw, I was amaized he did as well as he did with all those names of different cities across the world. I kept saying, boy, he must have practiced this one for days.

But I guess the Shrub didn't let me down. Other than saying nothing, he had to screw up some words or I would have thought it was taped and edited!

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

72. Yeah, he practiced it a whole lot

Twice in fact. I guess he was too busy learning to ride a bike to bother with something as unimportant as addressing the nation.

White House aides, who described the speech as an important address on the future of Iraq, said Bush practiced twice on Monday before boarding his helicopter for his trip to the speaking venue at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

[NMLobo]

20. Is it being replayed anywhere?

It's about 9;45 eastern now.

[PartyPooper]

22. I heard him thrice thrash the pronunciation with my own ears!

What a fucking moran!

:dunce:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. Flame away at me, but

I've been wondering about the pronounciation of Abu Ghraib myself. I've heard the standard "aboo grabe", and I'm not convinced it's correct. I want to read "aboo grah-yeeb"; but I'm certainly no expert.

Does anyone here speak the language? I'd really be interested in knowing the true pronounciation.

That said, while he may not be the only one mispronouncing it; Dumbyass has no excuse for his dimwitted slips of the tongue. If he'd just shut up, he wouldn't have this problem.

[PartyPooper]

24. But, Junior mispronounced it three different ways on one occasion!

How fucking stupid is that?

:dunce:

[Pachamama]

40. Yeah, usually someone mispronounces something the same way each t

...time. He really is stupid...:kick: :dunce:

[Spazito]

30. I've written speeches and have given speeches...

and when there are names or words that are unfamiliar to you, you write them phonetically, often in capital letters, so that you don't screw up like bush did. An example would be ABOO GRAY EBB (Abu Ghraib). I have no doubt that it was printed phonetically on the TelePrompters as well. He simply screwed up not once but three times.

[PartyPooper]

32. Exactly. Thank you, Spazito!

:hi:

[Spazito]

34. You're welcome!

:D

[Stephanie]

37. But it should not be UNFAMILIAR to him. He should be obsessed with it

He should be losing sleep over it. He should be mortified, horrified, resolved to atone. He should be shattered by the ruin of American moral authority and integrity. He should have thought of nothing else for the last three weeks. He shouldn't have JUST LEARNED THE NAME FOR THE SPEECH.

[Spazito]

39. Agreed, he should know it as we do, sadly, he does not...

because he chooses not to. He is unable to properly pronounce common everyday words so it is no surprise that, even with it provided phonetically on the telePrompters, he could not say it correctly.

[Pachamama]

41. Bullseye Stephanie! Your right! If anyone on this planet should know how

to say "Abu Ghraib" - It should be Shrub....I now know for sure that the "Emperor has no clothes - or Brain"...

[fishnfla]

75. Yes, thats why he did it on purpose

IMO, he did it for a reason.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

89. I agree...

I'd gladly accept his poor use of English and his bumbling mispronounciations if he accepted responsibility for the horrors that have occurred in Abu Ghraib.

Dumbya's fumbling mouth is the least offensive element of this scandal, and I'm afraid it deflects attention away from the real problems: his lack of remorse, his unwillingness to accept responsibility, his continued support for Rumsfeld. These offenses indicate that Dumbya's not merely a buffoon, but genuinely evil; and this is the message this country needs to get through its head...NOT that he's just a big ol' dumb redneck with a heart of gold.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

84. It would certainly make sense for them to be

phonetically spelled on the TelePrompter. I don't know how those work, however. Is it possible that the pronounciation for "Abu Ghraib" was spelled out, but typoed? We all know that Dumbya can barely read anyway, so this might be an explanation for his blunder.

Please understand, I'm not excusing it...but I'd feel hypocritical criticizing Dumbyass for mispronouncing a word that I've yet to hear pronounced correctly by anyone in America.

[frankieT]

64. i have good notions of arabic, i think

it's "abu ghra-ib" which is pretty close to "abu grabe" or "abu gribe". there is no equivalent in english for the arabic "gh" which sounds like the french "R".

[GoddessOfGuinness]

83. Thank you....

The "gh" was precisely what I wondered about. Here in America, if a sound is foreign to our language, we tend to dismiss it as irrelevant and "Americanize" other languages. To my mind, this is mispronounciation of a word, and we all do it.

Having a "president" who practices this habit doesn't help the American people, either.

[Shakespeare]

91. Yep.

That's the correct pronunciation. If it helps, remember that it's pronounced like the name of the great scholar Edward Said--not "SADE" but "SAH-EED"

I cringe every time I hear some dimwitted news anchor or reporter pronounce it "Abu GRABE."

It's GRAH-EEB. How difficult is that?

[Canuckistanian]

76. The "real" pronounciation is tricky

The Arabic "gh" sound is similar to the "ch" sound in Chanukah (Jewish Holiday) and almost impossible for western speakers to master.
The closest approximation is your second guess.

[Eloriel]

27. I thought I heard "Abu-Grum" n/t

[K8-EEE]

31. I Was Sitting In Traffic Cracking Up At The Abu-Stumbles!

God, pick one and go with it, moron!

[Minstrel Boy]

35. I genuinely thought he was talking about different prisons!

And that's positively THE last time I give him the benefit of the doubt! :evilgrin:

[Seabiscuit]

36. Bibbledy Babbledy Boob

I heard:

1. "Abuga...(long pause)... REBBB" (jutting out his jaw at the end as in spitting out RECCCHHH).

2. "Abugarum" (as in "Gollum").

3. "Abugurub" (as in "I'm a dumb shrub")

And this is the leader of the "free world"?????

:silly:

[Seabiscuit]

38. 'Scuse me...

2. should be ""Abugollum", nor "Abugarum". At least that's what I heard.

[Nihil]

45. Are you sure it wasn't "Ah, bugger 'em"?

:-)

[saracat]

54. Thank you!

This is the most hilarious post yet!

[TahitiNut]

69. "Abu Gollum" is Bush41.

Obviously.

[Pachamama]

42. Yep - that's how I heard it too...Thanks for the excellent Summary....

...President Idiot's butchering of even the Iraqi language....

:kick: :dunce:

[Robbien]

43. Ha! Reuters picked it up and actually reported it

Reuters headline

Bush trips over Abu Ghraib pronunciation

Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech were not enough to keep U.S. President George W. Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the U.S. mission in Iraq.

During the half-hour televised address, Bush mispronounced Abu Ghraib each of the three times he mentioned it while announcing U.S. plans to tear down the infamous jail and replace it with a new facility.

The prison, the scene of torture under Saddam Hussein and the setting for the Iraqi prison abuse scandal under the U.S. military, has a name that English speakers usually pronounce as "abu-grabe".

But the Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, stumbled on the first try, calling it "abugah-rayp". The second version came out "abu-garon", the third attempt sounded like "abu-garah".

White House aides, who described the speech as an important address on the future of Iraq, said Bush practised twice on Monday before boarding his helicopter for his trip to the speaking venue at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Bush, you third grade idiot!

[truthisfreedom]

44. this is symptomatic... he never discussed it with anyone! he knows nothing

about it! he obviously has never had any conversations with anyone in his administration about the sitution there, aside from hearing about it and seeing the pictures and getting all huffy. no discussions where he actually has had to pronounce the name of the place during the course of the conversation.... that's why he simply doesn't know what the heck the name of the place is. he's like the average american... they simply refer to it as "that prison in Iraq."

[Robbien]

46. He is so isolated

I wonder if anyone told him his numbers have dropped.

He is toast and probably doesn't even know it.

[tranche]

50. the guy doesn't read the news

how in the hell do you get all of your news for a WAR of your own doing from your campaign manager? the guys says he doesn't read the newspaper! and he's can't be listening to his daddy because senior knew better!

[radfringe]

47. wouldn't it be easier to just rename the prison

the airport was renamed from Saddam Airport to Baghdad Airport...

just rename Abu Ghraib Prison to something simpler --- ummm like Dubya Detention and Torture center or DDT for short

:evilgrin:

[Robbien]

49. Hee hee hee

Shame on me, I just cannot stop giggling.

[Cronus Protagonist]

48. It's his fake southern accent - can't figure out how to say it

He can't figure out how to say it in a fake southern accent, that's the problem. He can say it in his Ivy League accent easy, but not if he wants to keep the country illusion going for the election.

Click here for stunning, insulting, shocking, funny buttons, magnets and stickers

[tranche]

51. just call it the "beatin' box"

that's something he can easily pronounce and his unelected pals in washington could get a real kick out of it...

we should put tax dollars aside to send every person in american a complete description of each cabinet member selected by any administration.. we vote for one and get a gang of jerks for our trouble...

[Piperay]

52. "Ted Baxter"

wasn't as bad as chimp and even if he was he was just a TV character and not the pResident. :argh:

[dArKeR]

56. Practice doesn't make perfect for Bush speech - IOL

http://iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1085465341967B262&set_id=1

[jukes]

57. why demolish it?

they cd just rename it "the Ronald Raygun Re-education Center".




:eyes:

[susu369]

61. "Tear down this jail!"

Georgie felt so-o-o presidential. Of course, he couldn't pronounce the name of the prison.

Where's Mark Crispin Miller these days, BTW? I thought about him last night when bu$h* couldn't seem to get Abu Ghraib out of his mouth.

[0007]

59. Who else could have been a better front for the Carlyle Group?

Mentally and physically this clown
called junior
is always falling down

The blind can hear
and the deaf can see

[Jim__]

60. Pretty amazing

The prison has been in the headlines for at least 2 weeks. This is marketed as an important speech. You think this clown could have mastered the pronunciation of the word.

[lil-petunia]

63. Lil' Georgie can't read!

abu, abu,
the sky is always blue
you lump of flesh in my bed
laura, would do the do?

More poetry from our Rhymer in Chief.

[skypilot]

66. Dammit!!

It's not as though it hasn't been in the news everyday f*cking day for over a month now. You mean to tell me that this dipshit STILL can't pronounce it? We know he doesn't READ the news and I guess now it's safe to assume that he doesn't bother watching or listening to it either. Hell, does anyone in his entire administration know how to pronounce the word? You'd think he'd have picked it up by osmosis by now. Dumbass.

[Walt Starr]

67. Abu Ga RAPE!

I guess Dubya* must have seen all of the pics and videos.

:shrug:

[The Stranger]

68. "Prison abuse scandal" -- how sanitized is that?

There are pictures of people who were murdered. Why hasn't the whore media adopted the "prisoner murder scandal" phrase yet?

[DFWJock]

70. After 2 screw ups

he should have just thrown in the towel and called it "that prison place."

[Beetwasher]

74. Bush Is Like Ford on an Ether Binge

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

[qwertyMike]

78. So what?

Waste of bandwidth

How do YOU pronounce it?

[Beetwasher]

86. I Pronounce It Consistently the Same Way Every Time

I'm also not the President of the US who is supposed to be concerned and engaged. He's a fucking idiot. I expect the President to be able to learn how to fucking pronounce a goddamn word and not be an embarrassing idiotic schmuck. I expect him to rehearse it and learn it and do his fucking homework like any normal person would be expected to do. Got a problem w/ that?

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

87. More importantly,

how do the Iraqis pronounce it? They're the ones being tortured there. We're simply being tortured by Bush's attempt to speak English. It's a given that anything that isn't in Webster's is beyond the Chimp's phonetic reach.

[Demeter]

79. 4 Possible Conclusions

1) Bush is dyslexic, if not illiterate

2) Nobody ever discussed this prison in the White House meetings with the President, therefore, he never heard of the place before the speech

3) The entire White House staff is dyslexic (if not illiterate)

4) All of the above

[funkybutt]

80. MY coworker said he must "have been tired"

i replied, "arent' we all"

[soundfury]

81. What would Bill Cosby say? ItÕs all about who you know not what you know.

[Eloriel]

85. Hah! After reading all this, I can't remember how it's pronounced n/t

[hippywife]

90. Once we had an actor who thought he was president

now we have a president who thinks he's an actor.

I refuse to watch or listen to him anymore but when they play short clips of his speeches on news programs I just cringe.

The worst of all still has to be the clip of the Mistake of the Union speech where he accuses Iraq of trying to buy uranium...from Africa. The way he says it is like he is telling a scary story to a bunch of little kids. Oooohhhh...deep, dark Africa...oooohhh.

What a maroon! :eyes:

[NJCher]

92. I remember that!

The way he says it is like he is telling a scary story to a bunch of little kids. Oooohhhh...deep, dark Africa...oooohhh.

I laughed out loud!

It reminded me of Dana Carvey doing the imitation of his father when he said, "Scary! Scary!"


Cher

[ilovenicepeople]

93. on the subject of humour

I dont mean to put down Kerry but seeing as humour is a big part of this post I thought I would put in my two cents worth.If I could ask John Kerry one question it would be:Mr.Kerry Why the long face?