June 15, 2001

5:42 AM

President Bush, on his European tour, tries to calm Russia's concerns of Western expansion by saying they they shouldn't "fear freedom-loving peoples' expansion to their borders." Is he intimating that Russia's people are not "freedom-loving?

Funny, I heard Bush say those words in an NPR report this morning but when I went to CNN to get the quote, freedom-loving was missing from the quote.
posted by Taken Outtacontext (4 comments total)

There's always been a certain amount of spin-doctoring of speeches for the official record, from all politicians, often because the press get advance copies which are then subject to a certain amount of extemporarisation from the speaker, which may or may not work in his/her favour. (And the official record has been hard-worked since January.) I wouldn't be surprised if Bush saw "peoples" and simply introduced "freedom-loving" as one of those nasty little verbal tics that dominates American political oratory.
posted by holgate at 6:31 AM on June 15, 2001

Oh, and the BBC is reporting it with the "freedom-loving" left in.
posted by holgate at 6:38 AM on June 15, 2001

notice the headline on cnn of "Bush To Russia: 'not your enemy anymore'". uhh... when were we russia's enemy recently??? i can't wait till nov 2004.
posted by moz at 8:27 AM on June 15, 2001

Heck. Admit it. We haven't had a president this entertaining as a goofball since Gerald Ford. Which reminds me. What's Chevy Chase up to these days?
posted by ZachsMind at 1:45 AM on June 16, 2001