[Chris]

While watching Imus on MSNBC this morning, I caught a few Dubya for President commercials. One of them caught my eye, or actually my ear. I'll reproduce to the best of my ability the transcript of the last few sentences of the spot...

"Together, we're moving America forward, and George W. Bush and I approve this message."

Now, this would make sense if this commercial was being narrated by, say Dick Cheney, as it refers to the President in the third person. However, the narrator is not Cheney or anyone else, but the President himself. He manages to refer to himself in the third AND first person in a span of five words. And I'm sure I didn't mishear it as I played the spot back over a dozen times on the TiVo.

How much do you want to bet that the people producing the commercial noticed this, but just didn't want to bother re-shooting. I'm guessing that Bush is the type of person that is easily frustrated, and it was simply easier to upcut the "and" and let most people presume he said "I'm" then to try to bother him about being correct.

While I realize this is nit-picking, and it shows little about a man's ability to be President, but I do think it speaks a fair amount about our lowered expectations. Is it too much to ask that the President effectively speak the language?