Did President Bush swear today?

November 8, 2006 2:56 PM

Did President Bush swear today during his speech?

Part of his answer to a reporters question was bleeped out today on the radio, and it was close to a five second bleep. If he didn't swear, do you know what the cause of it was?

posted by pwally to law & government (17 comments total)

I would like to know this as well. I listened to the broadcast on NPR, if that helps. It happened around 1:20 Eastern Time.
posted by muddgirl at 3:06 PM on November 8, 2006

I heard that too (on NPR). I remember thinking it didn't really sound like he was about to swear, but I don't remember exactly what he was saying. I don't see any swearing in the transcript, so I assume it was some sort of technical malfunction.
posted by scottreynen at 3:06 PM on November 8, 2006

You can read and watch the whole thing here - no swearing.
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:09 PM on November 8, 2006

I was listening to 96.9 fm talk in Boston when I heard it so it doesn't seem likely that both stations had the same technical malfunction.
posted by pwally at 3:12 PM on November 8, 2006

Same with the NPR station in Minneapolis. Along with ABC broadcasting it live. Don't know the cause, but maybe everyone with the bleep had the same feed?
posted by schnee at 3:18 PM on November 8, 2006

I don't remember any beeping on the BBC's live online feed. YMMV.
posted by matthewr at 3:27 PM on November 8, 2006

According to a commentor on wonkette.com, the bleeped portion was...

Cheney, he says, he says, "If the job is not complete, Al Quaeda will have safe haven from which to launch attacks."

I'm assuming the commentor compared the BBC transcript with the aired bleeped version. No idea if this is accurate. If this was what was bleeped, it would seem to be a technical glitch.
posted by incessant at 3:36 PM on November 8, 2006

Maybe they all use the same audio source, which had a technical malfunction. It seems like an odd place to swear.
posted by muddgirl at 3:41 PM on November 8, 2006

perhaps the bleeped it to keep Al Qaeda from finding out such sensitive information
posted by criticalbill at 3:43 PM on November 8, 2006 [1 favorite]

KUOW (NPR) out of Seattle and the beep was heard here as well.
posted by nadawi at 4:02 PM on November 8, 2006

I was watching on CNN (I'm pretty sure I was watching at 1:20 pm EST) and I don't recall either a bleep or a swear.
posted by revgeorge at 4:09 PM on November 8, 2006

I watched it on NBC, and it had the bleep as well. From the context of later nervous laughter, I thought it was "thumpin'" and it for some reason got beeped out.
posted by every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes at 4:32 PM on November 8, 2006

It sounds like a technical glitch in some of the feeds.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 4:49 PM on November 8, 2006

Yep, heard it on one of the local NPR radio stations here in Los Angeles. I figured it must be a technical glitch, or that was one long swear word!
posted by Joh at 5:06 PM on November 8, 2006

Bush was just keepin' it real, his new strategy, yo.

No, really, I saw the BBC broadcast, no beep, no swears.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:56 PM on November 8, 2006 [1 favorite]

it probably was a side effect of bush's tears falling into the microphones
posted by troybob at 7:12 PM on November 8, 2006

(actually...honestly...bush kept bumping into the microphones when he was talking...so perhaps there was a bit of audio overload on one of the mics when he did that)
posted by troybob at 7:30 PM on November 8, 2006