Jon Stewart: Bush says 'in other words' a lot because we're all so dumb David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Friday August 10, 2007





Print This Email This On Thursday's Daily Show, Jon Stewart showed a clip of President Bush responding to a question about criticism from Neil Cavuto of Fox News by saying, "I've been around long enough to be able to understand how it works. Nobody likes to be called names. On the other there's -- we've got a bigger enemy than name-callers. That's al-Qaeda. Or people losing jobs." "Oh, my god!" screamed Stewart. "We're now fighting al Qaeda and the unemployed! They're everywhere!" Stewart then showed Bush telling Cavuto, "I mean, if bridges -- if rebuilding bridges is that big a priority, then we ought to prioritize that in the highway monies that we've already budgeted. ... In other words, prioritization means real prioritization." "A equals A," commented Stewart. "It's what's known in math as the retardative property." Stewart further pointed out that the phrase "in other words" is most commonly used when "the brilliant struggle to bring the complexities of higher thought down to the masses. The president often has to employ this rhetorical device, what with all of us being so dumb, like that time we couldn't understand why we were invading Iraq and Saddam Hussein." This was followed by a clip of Bush explaining, "He was a state sponsor of terror. In other words, the government had declared 'you are a state sponsor of terror.'" Stewart went on to show a series of similar clips, ending with Bush saying, "... in other words, the ability to discuss issues such as -- beef." "Here's the thing, Mr. President," Stewart concluded. "People who use the phrase 'in other words' think you don't understand what they're saying. We understand what you're saying. The look on our face isn't confusion. It's disbelief. In other words, we understand, we just don't fucking get it." The following video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast on August 9.





