As we're quite aware of by now, George W. Bush can have a sense of humor about terrorism and the situation in Iraq. Not everybody think that's entirely appropriate, but I think we can all agree that Bush does joke about it from time to time.

I've mentioned this many times now, but every time Bush says that his enemies are driven by nothing more complex than a blind unreasoning hatred of freedom, I get perplexed.

"- That was a joke, right? Was that a tongue-in-cheek type of thing? It was, right? Was it?"

I didn't actually hear or see the last statement he gave to the press, in fact, I rarely do. I mostly read about them.

So, may I suggest, that, for the sake of clarity, written accounts of President Bush's statements ought to also account for Bush's humorous little jests. Because, quite frankly, they don't translate very well to text, especially not in official statements which one might expect a little more seriousness from. Now now, I'm not saying that Bush should lose his humor when talking about extremely serious topics, but rather that his playfulness and his little jokes get lost in written accounts, which of course is a shame.

With this in mind, I thought a bit about how the President's jokes might better be accounted for in written text, and realized that there are already ways of doing this: it's done on a daily basis in IM and e-mail conversations. President Bush has no way of knowing this of course, since, first and foremost, he doesn't like to read very much, but also because he's ostensibly not that "into" the Internet (which is no wonder, with all the text and all). However, I think that someone on his staff ought to be, the responsible webmaster of Whitehouse.gov, at the very least.

So, to whom it may concern on the White House staff: here's my suggestion of how the President's latest official statement could be better illustrated for those who read about it and miss out on the funny parts:

I told the family how much we appreciated his sacrifice -- he was killed in Iraq -- and assured him that we would stay the course, that a free Iraq was very important for peace in the world, long-term peace, and that we're being challenged in Iraq because there are, *nudge nudge, wink wink*, people there that hate freedom. ;-)

See? Don't you agree that my additions (in bold) make the tongue-in-cheek part much more obvious? Of course, it may also make the jokes too obvious for one to really appreciate the humor in them. Perhaps, but then nobody can confuse Bush's little prank for a serious statement, at least. But then again, they might instead perceive the President as not very funny, and nobody likes a bore.

I can only assume that all of these issues has already been raised by the talented staff of the White House, and by carefully listing the pros and the cons, they must have figured that the likelyhood of anyone mistaking this for a serious statement is too little to risk having people think of the President as a boring old stiff.

The talented folks at the White House must have realized that while perhaps a handful of people or so may mistake the President's playful jests as serious statements, and thereby perceive him as gravely delusional, totally detached from reality, and that he has absolutely no idea about what drives people to commit these kinds of acts, at least the rest of the world appreciates his sense of humor.

After all, the press didn't even react to this statement, so they must have appreciated the joke, at least.

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