Bush Speak Volume 2: Fore More Years

As a follow-up of sorts to its Bushspeak: The Curious Wit & Wisdom of George W. Bush, Shout Factory issued Bushspeak, Vol. 2: Fore More Years (sic), taken from speeches the president gave during his second term. Even many of his supporters would acknowledge that Bush was prone to mispronunciations, grammatical mistakes, slips of the tongue, and just plain oddly phrased statements. This disc has quite a few such soundbites, whether he's declaring that "we will not have an all-volunteer Army" (and immediately correcting himself); noting (incorrectly) that Nelson Mandela is dead; claiming to have visited a mosque in 2001, and then again 50 years later; referring to Martin Luther King, Jr. as "Dr. Meth King"; or defining tribal sovereignty as "it's sovereign...you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity." As embarrassing as some of these faux pas might be, for the most part they're embarrassing mostly or only from a standpoint of poor articulation, rather than the more damning angle of factual errors or false assertions. As such, it's somewhat more of a novelty than a reflection of or judgment upon Bush's political competence and values, which might disappoint some of his many critics. It's also only 23 minutes in length, even though most of the statements are played twice — once with patriotic music in the background and separate chapters announced in a mock-stentorian voice, then simply unaccompanied and uninterrupted. Bush is certainly correct to point out, at the CD's outset, that nobody's accused him of being Shakespeare, and whether you're annoyed or amused by his use of the English language, it's likely good news that this is one series for which a volume focusing on another Bush term is an impossibility.