Cultural English 475 - Presidents: George W. Bush; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 475.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 475. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

On this Café, we’re going to talk about the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

It’s impossible to discuss any recent historical figure (someone who we all know or many of us know from the news) with any sort of objectivity, but we’ll do our best here in talking about current American presidents – presidents in the last, say, 20 years. Everyone has strong opinions one way or another.

This episode of the Café is dedicated to George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States. He, of course, is not to be confused with his father, George H. W. Bush, who was the 41st president of the U.S. George Walker Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1946. Connecticut is located on the eastern coast of the United States. He was the oldest child of George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. His father, as I mentioned, was the 41st president.

When George W. – he’s sometimes simply called by his middle initial, “W” – was two years old, the Bush family moved to Texas and settled in, or lived in, Midland, Texas. Midland, Texas, is about 330 miles west of Dallas, Texas – Texas being on the southern border of the U.S., bordering Mexico. Bush attended school in Texas, but he graduated high school from Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, where his father had gone to school. Phillips Academy is one of the most elite, expensive, exclusive schools – high schools – in the U.S. We would probably call them “prep schools.”

After graduating from Phillips Academy, Bush went to Yale University – again, just like his father had done. He graduated from Yale in 1968 with a degree in history. Just before his graduation, Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard as a pilot. The National Guard is part of the military that is run by each individual state, but it can be used by the government when the government needs more military troops.

The U.S. military has a variety of branches, or parts, including the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard. In addition to those branches, each state has its own military organization called the National Guard. When there’s a war, or when the government needs more “troops” – more men and women to go into battle to fight in a war – members of the National Guard are often asked to go along with the members of the other service branches of the U.S. military.

Bush served as a pilot – someone who flies a plane – from 1970 to 1973. He left the National Guard in 1973 to go back to school, this time to the Harvard Business School.
After graduating with his Master’s in Business Administration, or MBA, from Harvard in 1975, Bush moved back to Texas where he had grown up. He moved back to work in the oil and gas industry. He in fact began his own oil and gas business. He also during this time married a woman by the name of Laura Welch, who was a school librarian. They married in 1977, and in 1981 they had twin daughters: Jenna and Barbara Bush.

Bush ran for Congress in 1978, but he lost. He tried to be elected from one of the districts in Texas to represent them in the U.S. House of Representatives, but he failed in his attempt to win election. He instead decided to focus his attention on building his business. When we talk about building a business, we mean growing the business – making the business, the company, larger. His company did very well until the price of oil dropped in the 1980s. When we say the price “dropped,” we mean it decreased.

He sold his company in 1986 and worked as a consultant to the company that bought it. A “consultant” (consultant) is a person who gives advice to a company about a specific topic or gives help to a company for a specific task, usually for a short amount of time. Bush then worked in his father’s presidential campaign in 1988. George W. Bush’s father was at that time the vice president of the United States under then-President Ronald Reagan. He ran, himself, for President n 1988, and he was elected president.

The year following the election of his father to the presidency, George W. Bush returned to Texas once again. There he became part of a group that purchased, or bought, a professional baseball team: the Texas Rangers. Many people in Texas got to know about George Bush because of his involvement with the Texas Rangers. They got to know his skill as a businessman. In 1998, Bush sold his part of the Rangers for fifteen million dollars.

In 1994, a few years before this, George Bush ran for governor of Texas. The “governor” (governor) is the political leader of a state. You might think of him or her as the president of that state, the leader of the state. We might also call him or her the “executive” of the state. After having been elected as governor in 1994, Bush began spending more money on education in the state of Texas, especially for children up through high school.

He also made the salaries, or amount of money, of teachers and other people working in the schools dependent on the success of their students. When we say it was “dependent on,” we mean if a teacher’s students did well on certain tests, the teacher was rewarded – the teacher got, for example, more money. Education, then, was a major focus, or important concern, for Bush as governor in the 1990s in Texas.

George W. Bush also became well-known in the U.S. for his use of the death penalty in Texas. Each state decides how it’s going to punish the criminals in that state. Some states, including Texas, have what’s called a “death penalty.” The word “penalty” (penalty) refers to a punishment that you give people for doing something wrong. A “death penalty” would be a punishment of death. You are killed by the government, basically, if you commit a very serious crime such as murder, where you kill somebody else.

Bush won a second term as governor in 1998 with an approval rating of 70 percent. An “approval (approval) rating” is the percentage of people who are happy with someone or with something. If a president has high approval ratings, that means that lots of people like what he’s doing. If the president or the governor has low approval ratings, that means that people don’t like what he or she is doing. George Bush was very popular in Texas and won re-election in 1998 easily. In 1999, Bush announced that he was going to run for president of the United States.

It’s not uncommon for political leaders who already have a job as, say, a governor or a senator to run for election to another office – in this case, to the presidency of the United States. George Bush ran as the Republican nominee for president in the year 2000. He ran against the leader, the nominee of the Democratic Party, the vice president of the United States at that time, Al Gore. Al Gore was Bill Clinton’s vice president.

Well, it was an extremely close election – in fact, probably the closest election in American history, or one of the closest. Normally the news organizations are able to tell you who won the presidency on the night of the election, or at the latest the next morning, if it’s a close election. However, in the case of the 2000 presidential election, no one really knew who won because one state – one very important state, the state of Florida – took a long time counting their votes.

There were all sorts of problems, however, in how the state was counting the votes. Because of these problems, nobody knew really who had won the election, and until Florida decided who had won the state of Florida, we couldn’t know who was the president of the U.S. Well, to make a long story short – that is, not to give you all of the details of that story, to give you a summary of the story – it was decided after a few weeks that George Bush had won the Florida election.

Now, the strange thing was that this final decision was really made by the United States Supreme Court. In the U.S., there are three parts or branches of government: the executive branch, which is headed by the president; the legislative branch, which is the U.S. Congress – the Senate and House of Representatives; and the court system, the highest court being the Supreme Court of the United States.

Well, the Supreme Court decided in a vote of five to four that Bush basically had won the vote in Florida, or at least that was the effect of their decision. So, after a five-week period, Bush was finally recognized as being the winner of the presidential election of the year 2000.

A year after Bush was elected, or nearly one year later, the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. “Terrorism” (terrorism) is when a person or group of people use violence against another group of people for some political reason, often against innocent people. On September 11th, 2001, as you probably know, two planes were used to crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, and another into the Pentagon – the office of the U.S. military in Washington, D.C. A fourth plane was also “hijacked,” or taken, but that crashed in the state of Pennsylvania.

Over 3,000 people died on that day. George Bush and his team learned that the person responsible for this was Osama Bin Laden, head of a terrorist group called Al Qaeda. He also learned that Bin Laden was hiding in the country of Afghanistan and being protected by a group that was ruling Afghanistan at this time, the Taliban.

Bush quickly took action and brought together several countries in an international coalition. A “coalition” (coalition) is a group of countries, states, or people who work together because they want to achieve the same thing. In October 2001, this coalition began a war in Afghanistan to try to get rid of the Taliban and find Osama Bin Laden. Most Americans approved of Bush’s action, and he had a very high approval rating during this period following September 11th, or what we more commonly now refer to as 9-11 (9 being, of course, the month of September).

Unfortunately for Bush, this positive or high approval rating did not continue. This was mostly because of other actions that Bush took as president, particularly involving Iraq. In September 2002, Bush announced a new plan to preemptively use the U.S. military to protect the United States against possible danger. The keyword here is “preemptively” (preemptively). “Preemptively” means to act before someone does something in order to stop them from doing it.

In the case of Iraq, Bush announced that he thought that the then-leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of, what were called, “mass destruction” and was therefore a danger to the United States. This expression “weapons (weapons) of mass destruction” – abbreviated “WMD” – was very popular during this time period. What are weapons of mass destruction? Well, a weapon is something that is used to hurt or kill people. “Mass” refers to a lot of people. So, “weapons of mass destruction” would be weapons that could kill thousands of people or even millions of people.

Examples of weapons of mass destruction or WMDs would include things like biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. In addition, Bush said that Saddam Hussein had not obeyed the rules of the United Nations to allow people to go into Iraq and look for weapons of mass destruction. So, in March 2003, Bush ordered the military to invade Iraq. “To invade” (invade) means to go into a country and take over control of that country, or at least to remove the people who are now controlling the country.

This invasion was called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Within about a month, American and British military troops had taken over the major cities and were, in fact, in control of Iraq. However, they didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction. This made George W. Bush rather unpopular, not just in the world but here in the U.S., in particular. Many Americans began to wonder why Bush had invaded Iraq if there were in fact no WMDs there.

While Bush is largely remembered for his foreign policy – the things he did internationally – there were also some important things done during his time as president here in the U.S. One of the biggest changes was the passage of a law called “No Child Left Behind,” which began in 2002. No Child Left Behind was a plan to increase the government’s responsibility to monitor, or to make sure they knew, what was happening to the children in those schools. “To monitor” (monitor) means to watch something for a long period of time to see what works and what doesn’t.

In No Child Left Behind, there were a lot more tests that children had to take in order to make sure that they were learning the same information as students and other states. Remember, the control of education here in the U.S. is basically by the state. The federal government doesn’t control education directly. Bush was reelected president in 2004 for a second 4-year term. The following year, in 2005, there was a very large hurricane that hit the city of New Orleans in Louisiana, in the south-central part of the U.S.

This hurricane, called Hurricane Katrina, basically destroyed the city of New Orleans, or large parts of it. Part of the problem was that the hurricane was so large that it broke a number of levees in the city. A “levee” (levee) is a special kind of wall that is built to prevent a river from overflowing – to prevent the water from going onto the land around it. Many people blamed Bush – not for the hurricane, of course, but for his reaction and the slow reaction of the national or federal government to help the people in New Orleans.

Bush ended his second term in 2008. U.S. presidents are limited to two 4-year terms currently. At the time, the American economy faced one of its worst periods in history. Bush tried to help the economy by approving the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.” “Stabilization” (stabilization) is the process of making something calm, something steady. The act gave basically millions of dollars – billions of dollars – to large banks to help prevent the economy from getting even worse.

By the time Bush left office and the new president came in, Barack Obama, the economy was in serious shape. It was in very bad shape, and it continued to be in bad shape for a number of years. Bush left office with the country still at war in Afghanistan and in Iraq, with the economy in terrible trouble, and with the education system not much better than when he started.

For many people, he wasn’t a very good president. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of the Café, it’s difficult to have an objective view. We’ll have to see what historians years from now say about his presidency, but certainly everyone has an opinion on whether he was a good or bad president.

Now let’s answer some of the questions you have sent to us.

The first question comes from Jafar (Jafar) in Iran. The question is about the meaning of three expressions: “I beg to differ,” “would it kill you to do something,” and “ashes to ashes.” There’s no relationship among these three expressions. They’re not related in meaning, so let’s start with the first one, “I beg (beg) to differ (differ).”

“I beg to differ” is a public way of saying to someone that you disagree with him or you disagree with something he has just said. It’s rather formal and isn’t used that much in daily conversation, but it might be something that you could say to someone if you wanted to be polite and nice about disagreeing with him or her.

If someone were to say, “San Francisco is a wonderful city,” I might say, “Well, I beg to differ. It’s always cold in San Francisco, and the people who live there are very annoying.” I’m just kidding, of course. But that would be how you would use that expression.

The second expression is “would it to kill you to do something.” “Would it kill you to do something” is an expression used to refer to the fact that someone isn’t doing what you want him or her to do and you are displeased. You don’t like that fact. Usually we use this expression when you’ve asked someone to do something perhaps several times and the person still doesn’t do it, and it isn’t really a very difficult thing that you’re asking the person to do.

For example, if you tell your spouse – your husband or wife – to turn off the lights to the kitchen when he or she leaves the kitchen, and your spouse never does this, you might get angry and eventually say to your spouse, “Would it kill you to turn off the lights in the kitchen?” Now, when you say this, you are expressing some frustration, some displeasure. You are sort of getting angry, so it’s not something that you want to say to someone unless you know that person very well – know them well enough to get angry with them.

The final expression is “ashes (ashes) to ashes.” “Ashes to ashes” is a phrase typically used at funerals. The complete expression is “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The “ashes” of a person are the remains of a person after the body has been cremated. “To cremate” (cremate) means to burn the body. However, the expression really isn’t about cremation so much as it is about the end of your life. The idea is that your body began in nature, and as you bury it, it will return to nature. It will become part of nature once again.

The expression actually comes from the Bible – from the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible – where God is telling Adam and Eve, who have disobeyed him, that they will die and that their bodies will be buried in the earth. This is, of course, because Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Genesis story, if you know it. Well, even if you don’t know it, that’s what happened.

Finally, Alberto (Alberto) in Brazil wants to know about the way to use the word “worth” (worth). The word “worth” refers to the value of something. It could be the value in money. It could be the value in importance – emotional value, perhaps.

When we are comparing two different things that have some common units of measurement, of value, such as, say, two different cars, we can say this car is “worth more” than the car over here. We’re saying that it costs more money to buy this car than to buy the other car. You can have something that is “worth more than” and something that is “worth less than” another thing. So, using “worth” to compare different things is done by adding “more than” or “less than” after the word.

There is another related word to “worth,” and that is “worthy” (worthy). “Worthy” means deserving, something that should get some benefit or should receive some reward or some honor – something or someone, I should say. “The actor did a wonderful job in the movie. He is worthy” (or his performance is worthy) “of an Academy Award, an Oscar.” He is deserving of that. It is right that that should happen.

One more question – why not – this one from Gunther (Gunther) in Germany. This question has to do with the terms “hodgepodge,” “gazillion,” and “tons of.” Two of these terms are somewhat related. Let’s start with the one that isn’t, which is “hodgepodge” (hodgepodge).

A “hodgepodge of something” is a confused mixture of something – a mess, basically. “We have a hodgepodge of vegetables – we have carrots, we have lima beans, we have onions.” They don’t seem to go together very well. “It’s a hodgepodge.” It’s an odd mix. You can have a hodgepodge of music on your iPod or on your music player. I have a little classical. I have a little blues. I have a little country. I have some rock and roll. That would be a hodgepodge of music.

Now, the next two terms, “gazillion” and “tons of,” are related. “Gazillion” (gazillion) is a word we would only use informally to mean a very large number or quantity of something. “I have a gazillion things to do.” It sounds a little like “million” and “billion.” I’m not sure why we use a “gazillion,” but in an informal context, in informal English, people will sometimes use that term when they mean a lot of something. It’s often said somewhat jokingly as well. “There are gazillion reasons why I don’t want to go out with that woman.”

“Tons of” is also used to mean a large number or amount. A “ton” (ton) is technically 2,000 pounds. That would be 907.19 kilograms, approximately. When we say “tons of” something, however, we’re not referring to the weight of something – we’re referring to a large number of something, whatever those things are. So, I might say, for example, “I have tons of things to do.” “I have tons of friends on Facebook.” “I have tons of hair on my head.” Well, that last one isn’t quite true. So, that’s the meaning of “hodgepodge,” “gazillion,” and “tons of.”

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on the English Café.

Glossary

consultant – a person hired to give expert advice to a company about a specific topic for a short period of time

* When the company wanted to start using social media to advertise their products, they hired a marketing consultant to advise them.

governor – the highest-level political leader of a state; the top elected government official of a state

* The governor decided to put more money towards repairing roads because of how badly many were damaged in the storm.

salary – the amount of money an employee is paid to do a job; wage

* A promotion at work often means getting a higher salary as well as more responsibility.

approval rating – the percentage of people who are happy with something or someone

* The approval rating for the new healthcare program went up once people began experiencing the benefits.

terrorism – when a person or group of people use violence and fear against another group of people for political reasons

* Larger cities are more likely to be a target of terrorism than smaller cities.

coalition – a group of countries, states, or people who work together because they have similar wishes or goals

* When they learned that funding to their school was going to be cut, the parents, teachers, and administrators formed a coalition to fight the proposed changes.

preemptively – acting before an expected action; acting before something is expected to be done to one, usually to prevent that action from happening

* Stefano thought that he might be fired from his job, so he preemptively quit after finding another position.

weapons of mass destruction – weapons that can hurt or kill large numbers of people, usually biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons

* From the 1950’s to the 1990’s, weapons of mass destruction was a major issue between the Soviet Union and the United States.

to invade – to enter a country or an area to take control of its government and/or operation

* Most historians agree that World War II began when the German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.

to monitor – to watch something for a period of time to see its progress

* During the drought, city leaders asked that everyone monitor their water usage and use as little as possible.

levee – a special kind of wall that is built to prevent a river from flowing onto land

* To prevent our fields from flooding again next year, we need to build a levee.

stabilization – the process of making something calm, steady, and unlikely to change

* The bridge had shifted over the years, so engineers tried using different stabilization techniques to make the bridge safe to use again.

I beg to differ – a polite way of saying that you disagree with something that another person has just said

* You think that Joanna is the best person for the job, but I beg to differ. I think Liam would be a better choice.

Would it kill you to (do something)? – an expression used to refer to someone’s refusal or failure to do a certain task, showing one’s annoyance and displeasure

* You’ve been home all day. Would it kill you to clean up the house a little?

ashes to ashes (dust to dust) – a phrase typically used at funerals, meaning life comes from dust and we will return to it after death

* We are here to say good-bye to Monica. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

worth – something’s value; the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated

* How much is this damaged antique table worth?

hodgepodge – a mixture of things, without any order or organization; a mess

* Our home is decorated with a hodgepodge of furniture given to us by friends and family members.

gazillion – an informal term used to emphasize a very large number or quantity

* Aaron has a gazillion ideas, but he can’t seem to build a business around any one of them.

tons of (something) – a large number or amount

* We have tons of extra lemons from our lemon tree. Would you like some?

What Insiders Know

Margaret Truman

Children of famous people often have “a hard time” (difficulty) getting away from their parent’s “fame” (being known and talked about by many people) to “make a name” (succeed in a career) for themselves. It may be even more difficult for the children of American presidents. Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States became a successful singer and author.

Margaret Truman was born on February 17, 1924, and at that time, her father was a judge. By the time Margaret was in college in 1945, her father, who was already vice-president, became president of the United States.

After she graduated from college, Margaret Truman “pursued” (tried to establish) a career in singing, making her “professional debut” (first professional performance) on March 16, 1947. She performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on a radio broadcast. She went on to perform in many cities and “venues” (locations where an event is held), including the famous Carnegie Hall on November 1949.

Margaret was also a successful “author” (writer). Margaret Truman wrote a total of 32 books: 23 “novels” (book-length stories) and nine “non-fiction” (writing about facts and real events and people) books. She was particularly known for writing murder “mystery” (stories about discovering who committed a crime, usually “murder” (killing)) novels. In 1980, her book, Murder in the White House was “released” (made available for purchase). It was so popular that it was “turned” (changed) into a film called Murder at 1600, starring “action-star” (actor known for acting in movies involving fighting and action) Wesley Snipes.