I don't believe Mr. Bush's "gaffes" have anything at all to do with regional speech idiosyncrasies or idiom.. The kinds of mistakes he makes seems to point to some form of cognitive dysfunction like dyslexia or, more likely, some form aphasia. We should not leap to the conclusion though that his lapses in articulation indicate lapses in clarity of thought. It may be your opinion that his ideas and thought processes are limited or muddled, but it is a mistake to point to his verbalizations as proof. From what I have read, many folks with these sorts of maladies usually have their thought quite clearly formed in their mind, but have trouble quickly constructing a logical sentence to express it. I spent a little time examining the examples listed in the posts above, trying to identify and analyze the types of mistakes he makes. I came up with the following: Double Negatives Most people can handle the use of double negatives quite easily. Triple negatives usually start getting confusing, and beyond that, of course, is just obfuscation. Simple Negative: "It's not raining." Double Negative: "It's not true that it's not raining." Triple Negative: "I don't believe it's not true that it's not raining." (huh?) A number of Mr. Bush's gaffes seem to stem from an inability to formulate a double negative. Take his recent sentence: "And there is no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail,". In his mind, he had two thoughts to express (1) We will not fail, and (2) I have no doubt of it. Both of these are negatives. As he tries to concatenate them into a single sentence, he momentarily loses track of how many negatives must be present, and where, to express his thought. Look at another: "They misunderestimate me." His mind wanted to say something like "Do not incorrectly estimate me." He started out with "Do not--", a negative, and then his mind started searching for the negative prefix to "estimate". There are a number of negative prefixes he probably scanned, like "un-", "dis-", and "non-" and finally settled in "mis-", but as soon as he had verbalized "mis-" he realized it was incorrect. If you listened closely, you would have heard a slight pause before he added "underestimate". Unfortunately, the word came out as "misunderestimate," making his sentence a triple negative and reversed it's meaning. It was interesting that he used the word several times in a row, pausing ever so slightly between "mis" and "under" indicating that he fell into the same trap each time, and knew it. I thought I detected a slight wince of irritation flick across his face each time. Incorrect use of intensifiers An intensifier is an adjective meant to increase a quality of another word. In "very fast" the word "very" intensifies "fast." Now look at Bush's statement "Will the highways of the Internet become more few?" Here he uttered the intensifier "more" before he had selected the word to which it would be applied. No good word popped into his mind so he had to use the pathetic "more few" instead of "fewer". Although "more few" is perfectly logical, it is laughably awkward. Jabberwocky You know the poem: "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe." You don't know the definition of "slithy" but you know you don't like it because you immediately recognize it as a combination of "slimy" and "slithery". Mr. Bush seems to do this unintentionally as in his "Vulcanize society!" I'm sure he is perfectly familiar with the definition of "vulcanize" but his mind is thinking "vitalize" and "galvanize" simultaneously, so what comes out is "vulcanize." He does this with sentences as well: "put food on your family!" is a mis-merging of "Feed your Family" and "Put food on their plates". His statement "It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." Is clearly an incomplete merging of two ideas but without the context it was used in it's hard to understand what the "potential mental losses" refers to. (I hope not his own!)

Perhaps some of the statements of Mr. Bush are unfairly laughed at. For example, "I think we all agree, the past is over." Sure, it seems absurd because it's so obvious. So is "What's done is done" yet it's been repeated countless times. So is "A rose is a rose is a rose". That's pretty obvious, wouldn't you say? Although I'm not an expert grammarian, "This is still a dangerous world." and "Rarely is the question asked" seem like perfectly good sentences to me.

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Verbal dyslexia is prevelant in the Bush family and is most severe in the Bush son that we don't here about , except for his Silverado banking scandel.

Aphasia (depending upon its degree) however could cloud more than words but could cloud judgement, sense of self and even a sense of time. _____________________________________________

Here is my above post in Bush talk:

Verble disilexia is prelevant in the Bush family and is most severe in the son we hear about ...except not ..make no mistake about it , not in the Silverado banking scandel.

Aphasia ,depends on its degree, clud cloud judgment sensing self and even a sense of times. __________________________________________

Make no mistake about it . As a fan of Norm Crosby I get a kick out of Bush speak.