barkingmoose

After almost a year in office, George W. Bush still hasn’t improved as a speaker, especially when his comments aren’t scripted. In the latest example of his ineloquence, Dubya took it upon himself to abbreviate “Pakistanis” to the shorter (and easier to pronounce) “Pakis.” Unfortunately, his laziness-slash-ignorance resulted in a minor international incident: Paki is an ethnic slur. (See CNN coverage of last summer’s British race riots, set off by use of the term.) For their part, the Pakistani government is willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt—he is, after all, only the President of the United States. The India-Pakistan situation is extremely delicate, and once again the runner-up proves that we’d be better off if just about anyone else were sitting in the Oval Office.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2002 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.