joannejacobs.net

He was asking rhetorically, "Where's the Iraqi Nelson Mandela?" The metaphor was used a year ago by Fareed Zakaria. Here is the actual press conference.

Perhaps one day someone will do a study of just how many of the world's favorite Bushisms are similarly fictitious. But by then it will be too late to have any effect.

It's still an absurd and still wildly inaccurate statement. Saddam Hussein may have tracked down the thought leaders among his enemies, and tortured and killed many, but there is no equivalency between apartheid and sectarian violence. And without the context of Zakaria's statement at the fore, the statement is just as absurd and as much an embarrassing gaffe for Bush as first appears.

I say again, how is it that Bush survives as a leader when he so frequently fails as a communicator and commentator of world affairs?

He's saying these "Mandelas" were killed by Saddam Hussein's police state, not by the sectarian warfare which followed its destruction. It's very straightforward when you see the remark in its context, there's no need to know that anyone else said it earlier.

The gaffes are really not that common; he's just under scrutiny 24/7, has to answer for every single thing that happens in the world, and has millions of political enemies. Try reading the press conference, he really can express himself spontaneously and coherently.