Bush and "The Google"

The Great Decider has done it again. This past Monday (Oct. 23, 2006) President Bush was interviewed on CNBC and asked whether he ever googled anyone or used Google. His response: “Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps.”

Does Bush do this on purpose? Did he know that saying, “One of the things I’ve used on the Google …” was going to be an instant email clip sent around the world for the next week, to be saved in special Internet files with his countless other gaffes? Typing in “bush ‘the google’” listed 2,130,000 site hits on Google and 1,840,000 on Yahoo. Does Bush really want that kind of publicity for himself? If Bush is of the belief that any publicity is good publicity, then it was another banner week for him. However, given his current standing, I think this latest gaffe was only great for Google.

Let’s just take a moment to analyze linguistically why the Googler-in-Chief’s statement caused such a reaction. Was it just the “the?” Not really. There were other things wrong with his sentence, so let’s take a look:

Bush says, “One of the things I’ve used on (Google)” is –

Now, right there, after “is,” we’re expecting to hear a NAME or type of NOUN (person, place, or thing) that Bush enjoys looking up. Instead, we get: “to pull up maps,” which is a verb phrase. Said all at once, (and leaving out “on the Google”), we get, “One of the things I’ve used is to pull up maps.” Do you see how the first half of the sentence does not complement the second? A carpenter in his workshop wouldn’t say, “One of the things I use is to hammer in nails.”
Semantically, it’s a mess; but that part is mostly unconscious to the listener. What is funny about the clip is hearing Bush say, “the Google.”

“The Google.” The last time “the” was so memorably attached to a proper noun was when Donald Trump’s first wife, the Czec-born, Ivana, called her hubby, “The Donald.” And by inserting the little “the” in front of Google, Bush set off a firestorm of blog responses -- mostly derogatory comments from the U.S. and around the world. One site I looked at, thinkprogress.org, had comments in Swedish, Polish, Spanish, German and Dutch, in addition to mostly English (from the U.S. and the U.K.) as well as a 10-second video clip leading up to and just past Bush’s saying, “the Google.”

The misuse of that one little, three-letter word seemed to act as a beacon, a come-on to anti-Bushers everywhere (who, granted, don’t need much prodding) as a justifiable chance to criticize everything from his intelligence and general character to the Iraqi war, and on down to his Texas accent. How could the word “the” be such a trigger? How could “the” mean so much?

In general, the comments on thinkprogress.org were not particularly insightful (“The Decider uses The Google to remind The Citizens he is The Dumbass.” Comment by MAN — October 27, 2006 @ 12:38 pm being one of the more concise). However, I thought this Comment by jon — October 24, 2006 @ 12:08 pm made a good point:

… I think it’s ironic that the dude leading our country during the coming of age of the on-line experience calls it the “internets” (Oct. 8, 2004) and refers to the largest search engine as “the google.” It reminds me of his father when he was campaigning for president and stopped in a grocery store to be dumbfounded by scanner checkouts. How can I put it more bluntly? OUT OF TOUCH.

No one calls Google, “the Google.” Or rather, no one ELSE does that except the leader of the free world, from whom we would all like to expect better. My husband thinks that Bush thinks computer-related things are unmanly, unsuitable for a dude who would rather be clearing brush on his ranch; whether on purpose or not, Bush uses the wrong terminology to put a distance between himself and the whole e-world. Perhaps. Still, as I have often said to my kids, “That may be a reason, but it’s no excuse.”