I can’t stop giggling. President Bush referred to Pakistanis as “Pakis”. Oh my. My American readers probably don’t realize that this is a majorly offensive term elsewhere in the world. And he didn’t even apologize! Who’s advising this guy, anyway?
I can’t stop giggling. President Bush referred to Pakistanis as “Pakis”. Oh my. My American readers probably don’t realize that this is a majorly offensive term elsewhere in the world. And he didn’t even apologize! Who’s advising this guy, anyway?
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According to the news report I heard last night, a spokesman for Dubya did say later on that it had been a genuine slip of the tongue, and that he had meant no offence to the Pakistani people.
The trouble is, the only useful advice anyone could give him to rectify his problems with public speaking is to never, ever let him speak without a script to follow. Which just about worked on the campaign trail, when they’d trained him to fall back on a couple of dozen standard bits of rhetoric wherever an issue came up. It doesn’t work quite so well now he has to deal with new situations every day.
I wish someone would put a camera on the various advisors and spokespeople who are around when Bush is talking like this: I’ll bet their faces were a picture when this latest gaffe slipped out. Must be a stressful job, listening to your president undo days of careful diplomacy with a single word.
I don’t really blame him for letting it slip out. On Metafilter, somebody pointed out quite astutely that with a lot of the -stan countries (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc.) the people are known by the first part of the name. So it’s quite possible that he just assumed Pakistan followed the same rule. My problem is more with the fact that he didn’t apologize. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t deliberate; when you offend someone, you should still offer apologies.
Uzbekis, Pakis, and Turkeys!
You cannibals…eating them for Thanksgiving…
Knock it off, ferret. 🙂