George W. Bush's constant gaffes and mental lapses reflect the luxurious laziness of a scion who's never had to work hard at anything. 

By Todd Gitlin

What does George W. Bush know and when does he know it? (A) Not much and (B) not without long study periods and (C) even then not well. This is not only funny. 

Even pundits notice that the man is a gaffe artist -- that's the easy part, the (you might say) no-brainer. Evidence is not lacking that young Bush is grammatically challenged, semantically befuddled, factually slipshod. He makes a cheap spectacle of himself, whereupon his people can brand finger-pointers as, horror of horrors, elitists. Instant replay is made to order for television news -- it requires no homework -- and gaffes are made to order for instant replay. 

It's not hard to go to the videotape to show Bush as Governor Malaprop, he of "subliminable," using "subscribe" for "ascribe," "retort" for "resort," "hostile" for "hostage," "forethought" for "forefront," "gracious" for "grateful," "gist" for "grist," "suckles" for "sucks," and so on ad infinitum. Jacob Weisberg in Slate has collected these and other examples (he is not the only one), as well as many an instance of Bush jamming together singular verbs and plural nouns -- as in "Our priorities is our faith" (Greensboro, N.C., Oct. 10) and "Reading is the basics for all learning" (Reston, Va., March 28) -- and inverting, as in "We want to promote families in America. Families is where our nation takes hope, where wings take dream." (La Crosse, Wis., Oct. 19) There is also his memorable crack at Gail Sheehy: "The woman who knew that I had dyslexia -- 
I never interviewed her." (Orange, Calif., Sept. 15) 

Cast as a regular airhead, W. himself has learned to mock his own feebleness, joking, "I've been known to mangle a syllable or two, if you know what I mean." Thus does George W. Bush of Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School, a chip off his father's pork rinds, appeal to his audience's resentment of brains.