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The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder

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As my title says, this book is really NOT about GWB's quirky verbal stammers. It is about George W. Bush the man. It is an analysis of his political positions, his background and his personal politics.

Beware: after reading this book you will have good reason for thoroughly disliking this man, but not because he makes a bunch of funny verbal mistakes. If you're afraid of being thoroughly skeptical and possibly oppositional to the policies of our "commander in chief", then don't buy this book.

There are many many things in the book that I already knew, but the author defintely does lay out a very damaging portrayal of our current President's personal politics and ideology.

Please, get the newest paperback version, released AFTER 9-11. Do NOT get the old hardcover version printed before the September events. You'll miss out on a lot of extra materials if you don't.

This book is very parochial and does not go very deep into foreign policy, class analysis, or deeper and longer standing issues of US society (issues that are often laughingly painted as "class warfare" in the commercial media whenever they are hinted at, and thereby sidestepped in favor of fluff), but it does paint a very convincing picture of a president who is fully devoted to the most reactionary and privileged elements of the ruling class in the United States.

This is NOT about some supposedly "stupid" president who is "incompetent" or "dumb". These kind of appeals to Goerge Jr's supposed "stupidity" only show how stupid and gullible Democrats and "Liberals" really are, and how they really fall all over themselves to play into the hands of the Bush administration who want nothing more than to portray George W. Bush as a "regular joe" who cares about the "working man" and is trying his best to protect "America" from any number of mysterious and devious enemies waiting to pounce on us.

"Make no mistake", GWB is none of these things, but instead is as much a blue-blood, silver-spoon ivy-leaguer as is Al Gore and actually quite more so. And, is as thoroughly calculated and schooled in propaganda, public relations and polls as was Bill Clinton or his father George Bush the First, or the Reagan administration before them.

It's about a president who is very much aware of what he is doing to America and who seeks to, and IS using the deaths of 3000 people to advance a reactionary and regressive agenda, all wrapped in the flag.

I actually suggest that readers that already realize this NOT read this book, don't bother, but rather read some more in-depth analysis of foreign policy of the kind of class warfare and nationalism that is now and always has used "patriotism" (since the dawn of recorded history and beyond) as a tool to convince the general population into accepting policies that thoroughly harm them and to draw them into subservience under protection of the fearless leader.

If what I've said above seems odd or outlandish to you, then just read this very good book on the personality of our president (the best currently available), get from it what you can, and then move on to more broad analysis later.

Josh

"What's not fine is, rarely is the question asked, are, is our children learning." - George W. Bush, Jan. 2000

Media critic Mark Crispin Miller has written a new book titled The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder. Although it brims with outrageous examples of Bush's inability to speak meaningful sentences (e.g., "Laura and I don't realize how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis."), this book is not so much about Bush's illiteracy as it is about how the corporate media cherishes him and his utter lack of ideas.

Miller believes that Bush's problem is deeper than mere dyslexia, or what he calls Bush's "West Texas ebonics." It's deeper, too, than simple ignorance. Bush's problem is that he's an ANTI-intellectual, and thus he plays very well on television. Although an excellent advertising medium, television detests reasoned discourse and instead focuses attention on the visual and the trivial, such as Ross Perot's big ears, Al Gore's robotic gestures, or any woman's hair style. Writes Miller: "The networks' journalistic stars go on and on and on about the politicians' failure or success at pleasing--or at not displeasing--viewers. ...such interminable yakking tells us nothing, dwelling on details of bearing, posture, voice, and makeup, instead of dealing with what anybody did, said, or failed to say." Put another way, our TV culture reduces "all discussion to the level of the taste-test, wherein 'likeability' is all that counts."

Thus, a smirking ignoramus who couldn't name any world leaders during his presidential campaign actually became a darling of the media, whose reporters and pundits continue to coddle him like a slow child, virtually never throwing him any curves nor attempting to pin him down with pointed or complex questions. In a typically wry passage, Miller observes: "Thus, Bush himself is a big-time beneficiary of what he likes to call 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'"

Particularly galling to Miller is the Right's attempt to spin Bush's ignorance as an indication that he's a man of the people, like an Andrew Jackson or an Abraham Lincoln. (Republican Representative J.C. Watts actually introduced Bush at a campaign rally in South Carolina by shouting proudly, "You don't have to be smart to be president!") Miller reminds us that Bush hardly dragged himself up from common conditions. Rather, he partied his way through school, squandering rich educational opportunities at Andover and Yale, two highly competitive institutions which never would have accepted him--much less graduated him--without his family's intercession. Accordingly, Miller dubs Bush the anti-Lincoln, "one who, instead of learning eagerly in humble circumstances, learned almost nothing at the finest institutions in the land."

"And I see Bill Buckley is here tonight, fellow Yale man. We go way back, and we have a lot in common. Bill wrote a book at Yale--I read one." - George W Bush, Oct. 2000

Miller's book is nothing short of alarming, cataloguing as it does the anti-democratic collusion between the corporate media and the conservative politicians who support them. But Miller's wit is as keen as his powers of observation, so this book is as pleasurable as it is disturbingly informative.

Where Miller could have opted for the easy laughs and compiled a list of Bush's oratory gaffes, appending them with a few pompous put-downs, he has infact used Bush's verbal foul-ups merely as tools with which to support a much deeper and more unsettling observation.
Miller paints a lucid and disturbing picture of 21st century America, where a ubiquitous media culture promotes the dumbing-down of society and scorns intellectualism, instructive debate, creative vision and radical argument. Television, he says, exists solely to entertain, not educate, within safe, predictable parameters. Its agenda reserves no place for florid speech, mental provocation or inspirational ideals; instead, news and advertising are delivered in easily digestable chunks that deem obsolete any input on behalf of the viewer. The viewing masses are assailed with the familiar and the comfortable; advertisers reassure us they have our every whim catered for as long as we keep the cash flowing, and Hollywood celebrity scandals take the edge off any serious issues that might threaten to force us to form opinions or reassess our lives.
Moreover, Miller claims it is this brain-dead media culture that has cushioned Bush's rise to power - a culture that dispensed with intelligent debate and adroit character exposition during the presidential campaign and instead focussed on trivialities such as the candidates' likeability, photogenic profile and ability to keep the viewers from switching channels. It was no wonder, says Miller, that Gore was labelled "elitist" and lambasted for his dry, lengthy dissection of the Dingell/Norwood Bill, while Bush was hoisted onto a pedestal for feigning scorn over the more complex issues and feebly mumbling empty rhetoric like, "I think the administration needs to do what they think is right".
According to the author, it was not necessary, and still isn't, for George Bush to expound on any of his policies in anything approaching legible syntax. Television needs simple soundbites; and incoherent peculiarities such as "I believe what I believe is true" are founded on exactly the same anti-intellectual level that the American media culture has championed. Furthermore, Miller explains, there has been a drastic shift by the big media honchos to the far right of the political spectrum for purposes of self-preservation, ensuring the safety and approval of an administration that protects and defends their massive salaries so proficiently. It is for these reasons that not only does the idiot box manage to blatantly forgive Dubya's indiscretions, lies and deceptions, it actually forgets them.
Miller's final chapter is quite daring in its assertions and yet extremely hard to discredit. In it he puts forward the concept of the GOP's survival requiring the existence of an enemy, real or imagined. During the Cold War this was easily maintained; once the USSR fell so spectacularly, and the Gulf War was wrapped up, the party had to search closer to home, and found an ideal bad guy in the Clinton administration and a smooth-talking president who championed negroes, endorsed the murder of unborn babies and, worst of all, couldn't keep his presidential priapus in check. Having swept into office via a poorly disguised vote-rigging conspiracy and a galling breach of civil rights, the GOP continues to concentrate its energy in painting the Democrats as the true saboteur of US security, unity and moral values. It would be interesting to hear Miller's view on just how much this propaganda has mutated since September 11 threw us a new boogie man to fear in the form of "rogue states" and "terrorist networks".
I urge you to pick up this book and read it right away. Don't be fooled into thinking of it as a snide, cheap swipe at Bush's verbal stumblings, nor a left-wing, elitist rant based on a bad case of sour grapes. It is neither. It is a comprehensive, well-researched and no-holds-barred synopsis of Bush's past and the events that guided him into the Whitehouse, as well as a rich and comprehensive character study. All of Miller's claims and quotes are supported by an extensive reference section, and he has provided a diverse list of publications for further reading as well. On top of this, "The Bush Dyslexicon" is a scathing analysis of the media culture that steers contemporary America, and how its agenda works so symbiotically with George Bush's mindset. Authors and researchers like Miller are vital catalysts to the complacency of the status quo; even moreso in an age where the general media has relinquished its role as a social and political scrutineer in favour of tagging obediently behind the financial doers and makers.

I have both editions of this book; the earlier one and the one published just this year. The newer edition is much improved from the new material, but the message is the same.

This appears to be a vastly misunderstood work. I understand that some bookstores stack this in the "humor" or "political humor" (if they have one) sections. That's like placing "Animal Farm" in the children's section because it has talking pigs and horses. Personally, I don't find disabilities amusing (Bush's no less than any others) and Miller seems to make it clear he feels the same way. Also, the joke has been running on too long by this time to be funny.

The other mistake is that this is simply an attack by a liberal professor against the conservative Bush president. Yes, Miller is obviously a liberal and does attack Bush with a near lethal precision of insight and logic -- the kind Peggy Noonan wishes she had -- but "Dyslexicon" is every bit as much about the rest of us as it is about Bush. It is about how our superficial media allows a creature such as Bush to exist and even flourish.

Regardless of how you feel about the current president Bush, reading Dyslexicon is very instructive in understanding the psychology of others, particularly politicians. That's a useful skill in this day and age.

Given our "Commander-in-Chief's" well-documented tendency to butcher the English language, it would have been easy for some humorist with professorial tendencies to write a book making fun of him. George W. Bush's egregious "sins of syntax" certainly seem deserving of such an embarrasing public penance. A book like that would probably be a good deal of fun to read, and everyone would be talking about it at cocktail parties for at least a week. Certainly it would be an easy book to write, a quick book to read, and instantly forgettable. Fortunately for the literate and poltically conscious among us, "The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder" is far more substantial than that. Author Mark Crispin Miller is no hack political satirist going for the quick buck and the cheap laugh; he is a politically conscious Professor from New York University, a concerned American citizen who just happens to have been blessed with a genuine talent for wry and insightful humor. It should be emphasized, for the benefit of Bush supporters who might bristle at the title, that this book is no smear job. True to the academic tradition, Miller's book is a thoroughly researched, and meticulously detailed work. Those familiar with his earlier work will of course recognize the rapier wit and keen analytical sensibilities that he brings to bear on all his subject matter. The uninitiated will be delighted to find the book accesible to a wide audience of readers; instead of stuffy "academese," the book is written in elegant, often witty prose. But for all its wit, the book does address some very serious issues concerning our "first unelected president." Aside from the more obvious "language issues," there are even more disturbing matters to consider. Among Miller's chief concerns are Bush's apparent ignorance of world history, American history, geography, foreign policy, and even the day-to-day operations of the American government! Miller's perspective on these matters is facinating and powerful. In several sections he drives home his points by invoking the words and spirits of previous presidents, a most effective literary tactic. Without revealing any juicy plot details, this reviewer would suggest that one of the over-arching lessons of Miller's book is that these are issues to be taken seriously; as such, it is in our best interests as Americans to take this president seriously. He is not quite the airhead he would like us to think he his. As Bush himself might put it, we "misunderestimate" him at our own peril. Those who read this book will surely be glad that they did; and when they are finished reading it they will no doubt want to thank Professor Miller for his fair warnings.

In 1972, according to J. H. Hatfield in his book 'Fortunate Son,' the 26-year-old George Bush was arrested for possession of cocaine in Houston; as Hatfield pointed out, a friendly judge erased the arrest and conviction from the public record.

True or false ? Take your pick.

At best, it's an example of how a boozing prodigal son can turn his life around. He's not the only one. To cite a minor example, after he underwent a religious awakening similar to Bush, Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye went from an alcohol-clouded life on Skid Row in Los Angeles to Speaker of the Navajo Nation Council and then president of the Navajo Nation.

Naturally, Bush gets somewhat upset when anyone cites the cocaine charge. This book cites an interview with Seth Mnookin of the magazine Brill's Content in which Bush said Hatfield was condemned ". . . . for writing the story." He didn't criticize Hatfield for getting the story wrong, for making it up, for not checking facts or for obvious malice -- he criticized him ". . . . for writing the story."

If nothing else, it shows Bush's sloppiness in his use of language. It is the major complaint against Bush, that he has an undisciplined sloppy approach to everything he does. After the attack on the World Trade Center, he announced a "crusade" against the Arabs -- using the one word, crusade, that is certain to stiffen Arab resistance. When he went to the Far East, he promised to look the Asian leaders directly in the eye -- using the precise image that is a challenge to a confrontation.

So, why was Bush elected ? After eight years of poll-driven Clinton decisions, the public didn't want a cerebral activist president. Bush was the only alternative, and in the fall of 2000 his sloppiness seemed charming and harmless. Yet, in times of crisis and tough decisions, this sloppiness causes trouble.

As this book points out, on page after page, Bush is clearly a real-life Forrest Gump elevated far beyond the realm of fuzzy warm feelings. In the movie, Gump was always a slightly befuddled observer at great events; in real life, consistently as this book points out, Bush is a tongue-tied fumbler at the heart of great events. It's not nearly as heart-warming as a typical American movie with its syrupy happy ending.

Bush's other fault, as the book makes clear, is his fundamentalist religious faith that reflects a cold righteousness that chills anyone who fails to accept his tenets. We are now in a war against terrorism, a war in which we need Christians, Jews and Muslims to join an ecumenical campaign against fundamentalist radicals who exploit religion for their own ends.

In 1775, Samuel Johnson noted "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Today, based on the actions of religious extremists -- from people who blow up abortion clinics to those who fly aircraft into buildings -- Johnson would surely say "Religion is the last refuge of scoundrels."

Yet, the book isn't really an attack on Bush. The underlying question is whether our modern media, with its emphasis on amusing but meaningless trivia, makes it impossible for a serious candidate to succeed in politics.

This isn't a book about the last election, it's really about the next election. The Bush record, set out in verbatim detail, raises serious questions about a political system that allows a doofus such as Bush to be elected. Yet, it's only half the issue. Miller needs to write a similar book about Al Gore, who wasn't a beacon of terminological exactitude and visionary enlightenment.

In Canada, Prime Minister Jean Chretien draws criticism similar to Bush. In Great Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing similar scrutiny. Does the triviality of modern news reporting create a crisis of competent leadership -- or are other fundamental faults undermining the democratic idea? This book is an essential introduction to that debate.

Now, let the opinions rage. Out of it comes a stronger society.

"The Bush Dyslexicon" took me by surprise for several reasons. First, the author dissects the biased interplay between televised journalists, (providing excerpts from actual transcripts), and the politically influenced media that awakens or reminds us that journalists, no matter how educated or "credible", are all too often swayed by those who dole out the paychecks. Second, much light is shed on Bush's record - which the media shockingly evaded throughout the campaign - and points out the discrepancies between the "likeable" persona Bush attempts to portray with the wholly callous and elitist nature of his actions. Miller demonstrates how Bush's most awkward and often-humorous gaffes occur when he's striving to appear "compassionate", and provides numerous examples. I couldn't help laughing aloud, but as Miller points out, "it's not really funny." I personally thought Bush's time in office would provide for constant amusement after watching him on the all-mighty TV just once, but a closer look at his record cut that short. Finally, what surprised me the most was Miller's objectivity. This is certainly not a word that a die-hard conservative would have used, but overall objectivity is irrefutable. The author is a professor of media studies, not a "lefty" necessarily or blind to his own party's flaws. His own political affiliation is not the heart of the issue here...rather, it is Bush's political record, glaring ignorance and ill-equipped faculties to be president - and the media's astonishing readiness to assist him in this feat - that merits close attention. Mark Crispin Miller is an exceptional writer - witty, smart and insightful - who I highly, highly recommend to anyone willing to brave the truth.

When I first saw this book, I thought it was just another collection of idiotic sounding, yet inane collection of misstatements by our unimpressive, unelected President. Was I ever wrong! The Bush Dyslexicon is actually an indictment of the whole American media and society's bias against intelligence. This is about the whole "Dumbing Down of America." George W. Bush is one of the main symbols of a short-sighted nation looking at the surface and nothing deeper. For everyone who thinks our President is just an affable, but harmless idiot, PLEASE read this book and find out the story beneath the surface.

The gaffes by President George W. Bush are no laughing matter. Funny they may be, but to merely laugh at his gaffes or roll one's eyes is to pretend that he is just a big bumblehead and is therefore, no danger to America. To do so is a big mistake and Mark Crispin Miller shows why.

Mark Crispin Miller's book -- The Bush Dyslexicon (both the original and the recently updated version) -- take us into a haunted horror house of the President's mind. If you laugh, you miss the point. Virtually every Bush gaffe, read closely and deconstructed carefully, reveals great danger because it reveals what Bush really thinks about people, about issues, about culture, about intellect, about education, about the environment, about his status as a silver spoon son with silver spoon entitlements and an arrogance to match, all masked by his handlers and minders via patina of "good ole boy" charm.

Liberals make a mistake dismissing the Bush charm and dismissing the Bush intellect. He has, with his guru Karl Rove, set probably the most political White House in American History, rewarding corporate [friends] with tax cuts, war contracts and slaps on the wrist for Wall Street shenanigans and consigning the non-rich to the misery of everyday American life with no hope of help. Now Bush is embarking upon conquest and American Empire -- wars without end, preventive wars, wars of Empire.

Frankly, one could see it all coming if one had examined the Bush gaffes rather closely in 2000 rather than merely laughed at them.

Mark Crispin Miller has provided a patriotic public service under what remains of the FIrst Amendment in an effort to guarantee the continued existence and success of the American nation for eons to come. His exposure of and deconstruction, parsing and further research about the Bush gaffes should send a chill down the spine of every American who believes in freedom, liberty, justice and democracy.

The Bush gaffes documented, analyzed and exposed in The Bush Dyslexicon clearly show that Bush is an enemy of freedom, liberty, justice and democracy. Laugh and dismiss Bush and we will lose our country. Study his gaffes with Miller as your mentor and tutor and we can become motivated to save the nation, and do it, in the words of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, if we organize, organize, organize.

This is stuff that makes it on Leno and Letterman and for good reason. But Mark Crispin Miller tells you why you should read the Bush gaffes and be scared, be very scared.

Thomas A. Prentice
Austin, Texas

It took me longer to read this book than I had originally anticipated. This is because I found myself re-reading in complete disbelief so many of the inane ramblings of the functionally illiterate current occupant of the White House (does he really deserve the honor of the title, "President"?). It has been said that somewhere in Texas, a village (Crawford, perhaps?) is missing its idiot. I think if one were to look in Washington DC on Pennsylvania Avenue, one would be sure to find him.

In reading Miller's book, I believe that the laughter elicited by the many verbal gaffes of the current White House occupant arises from the fact that many people are just outright incredulous that one so inarticulate, illiterate, and ignorant could be elected for a second term to the highest political office in our land (although it is true that he was not elected to his first term as the chief occupant of the White House).

Many of Mr. Bush's malapropisms will elicit a chuckle or even a guffaw. Others will just leave you scratching you head -- what on Earth was he saying? And yet others belie the true intentions of the man (it is especially revealing to read "Bush on the Couch" by Dr Justin A. Frank along with this book).

The real meat of Miller's analysis comes toward the end of this book. Here he ascribes Mr. Bush's ascendancy to the office of President to the Media's bias, not to the left as is often stated, but to the extreme right. This should come as no surprise to anybody -- the major television broadcast corporations are, after all, a part of the plutocratic system that stands to benefit from the extreme pro-big business, anti-middle class neo-conservative policies of the Bush ideologues. Hence, the media that should have encouraged a sense of public outrage at the mockery made of the Constitution in the 2000 Presidential election, simply looked the other way and themselves became a party to the greatest affront to democracy in the history of our great nation. I suppose that we shouldn't allow pesky little details such as the United States Constitution to interfere with the Bush agenda. That very same media machine, by the way, was all too willing to hang Bill Clinton in effigy because of a bad real estate deal and a sexual faux pas that should have been treated as a matter of personal morality rather than national policy.

But why do so many in the American middle and working class buy this guy? This is truly paradoxical given that so many of the policies of this administration have worked so much to the disadvantage of America's middle class. I believe that the answer lies in the fact that the majority of Americans have simply become lazy -- too lazy to involve themselves in the political process in any meaningful way. It is far easier, after all, to listen to the ranting diatribes of religio-facist gas bags such as Limbaugh, Hannity, or Coulter who all spew the same toxic brand of pseudo-patriotic swill, than it is to devote the energy and effort required to think for oneself. So it seems that the American majority (51 per cent, at least) has, like the current White House occupant, followed the path of least resistance and allowed itself become functionally illiterate. What is even more alarming, however, is that so many Americans now seem to enthusiastically follow the lead of their esteemed Occupant in Chief in taking great pride in their ignorance. And Miller correctly warns us that if this trend continues, we stand to lose our democracy.

After reading Miller's book it should come as no surprise that the current occupant of the White House has under-funded so many of his promised education initiatives. After all, the most powerful enemy of any demagogue is a well educated electorate.