Check this out:

One of the Deadheads posted this in chat this morning with the preamble:

"When President Bush was questioned about tribal sovereignty in the 21st century at a gathering of minority journalists he responded: "Tribal sovereignty means that. It's sovereign. You're a ... you're a ... you've been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity." Jesse Jackson makes light of Bush's remarks at the conference and we speak with Mark Trahant, the reporter who asked Bush the question."

Then he posted this bit:

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush speaking at the UNITY Conference this past Friday. Afterwards, the Reverend Jesse Jackson held a news conference and he was questioned by Brent Merrill of the publication, Smoke Signals.

BRENT MERRILL: As you saw today at the president's conference, the leader of the free world does not understand tribal sovereignty. What would you do in your estimation, Reverend, what would you do and how would you advise tribes to educate our folks, just exactly what tribal sovereignty is?

JESSE JACKSON: The President explained. You just didn't understand. Sovereignty is sovereignty. You understand? It's like in sovereignity. If you are on a reservation, you have been soverized. Your Ph.D. is in soverbication. You understand? I don't think you understand.

BRENT MERRILL: You're right. I didn't understand that.

JESSE JACKSON: Well, needless to say -- needless to say that the sovereignty of American – Native American tribes are federally protected rights. As long as Native Americans were perishing on those reservations it didn't matter to states. But now that you have gaming on the reservations and economic development on the reservations, and indeed in some states voting on the reservations, the state now wants to impose itself on the federally protected sovereignty of the states. It has nothing to do with education, per se. It has to do with a legal relationship between federally constructed contracts or treaties, and states would not have the right to interfere with those federal territories. That is the real answer to that.

Source: http://democracynow.org

After I picked myself up from the floor, I tabbed over to the website so I could read about GWB's semantic antics and discovered the quote from Jackson. The activist in me is outraged that we have fallen so low in terms of our language that no one notices these things except for a select, vigilant few. I am guilty of apathy also: if my pal had not posted that, I would have gone through the day not knowing about these language crimes unless some comedian makes it part of his nightly monologue. The teacher in me will appease the activist by vowing to make sure my students are aware that linguistic manipulation does not a word make. I plan to use these very soundbites to make my point. Hopefully, that will settle the activist enough so that she does not go running around waving her red pen and crying "foul!!" at these venerable perpetrators of bad English.

On the other hand I can see how this all fits GWB's plan now! It's all part of the "No Child Left Behind" deal that I prefer to call the "Dumbing Down of America" plan. This is classic smoke and mirrors: "if you use it in a sentence they won't know the difference" -- a tactic my students use a lot. Bush is pushing an agenda which supports what I have come to see as a major change in college education, which is to let anyone in regardless of skill level. Don't get me wrong, everyone should be allowed free and unrestricted access to a college education if they wish but should that guarantee admission? The drop in standards from the 1960s and 70s is palpable and as an old fart I am appalled by how much high school students do NOT know as opposed to what they DO know. I feel pressured all the time to give A's because someone might lose their scholarship but I do not succumb, although I may have softened a bit more. On the brighter side, the past year's freshmen did seem to be more on-the-ball than the first two years' groups.

Elitism aside, and I know full well I am guilty of it more often than is comfortable, I don't know whether to be amused or sickened by GWB and JJ's mangling of the language. To me it shows nothing but weakness of character to try to "pass" as great thinkers by being unable to define a simple concept as "sovereignty." I would have been able to shoot from the hip with an "it means they rule themselves" instead of drooling on my shoe. Maybe I should run for public office? Naahh ... I inhaled many years ago and I couldn't take the public scrutiny.