Greetings, Gentle Reader,

A friend called his mother in frustration over his son’s teenage behavior. Describing his son’s doing, he asked for advice. She listened and, when he had finished, burst out laughing and hung up on him! She figured he had it coming.

Barbara Bush said about the same, when she spoke of her granddaughters’ misbehavior. She said the President was getting a little of his own back, and she seemed to think that he, too, had it coming.

Our President’s family is a riot. Did you see the picture he showed of Jeb Bush? Apparently, the governor had got in bad with his older brother, which wasn’t wise, because the President, smiling from ear to ear, showed a childhood picture of the governor of the great state of Florida, in which poor Jeb was bare naked. I don’t know what the governor will do to the President in return, but I have every confidence that it will be good.

The President addressed the Radio-Television Correspon-dents Association, and poked fun at his penchant for mangling the English language. He started by teasing the Democrats’ ad, in which the little girl lifts her glass and politely asks her mother for some more arsenic in her water.:"Laura and I are thrilled to be here. I appreciate the members of the press. I think you serve a very useful purpose, especially tonight.

"As you know, we’re studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water., To base our decision on sound science, the scientists told us we needed to test the water glasses of about 3,000 people. Thank you for participating."

He says "some guy" put together a collection of his wit and wisdom, or as the guy describes it, his "accidental wit and wisdom." It’s "like the thoughts of Chairman Mao, only with laughs, and not in Chinese."

Foreign policy: "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and we knew exactly who the they were. It was us versus them. And it was clear who the them was. Today, we’re not so sure who they are, but we know they’re there."

He describes this as his most famous statement. "Rarely is the question asked, "‘Is our children learning.’ Let us analyze that sentence for a moment,. If you’re a stickler, you probably think the singular verb ‘is’ should have been the plural ‘are,’ but if you read it closely, you’ll see I’m using the intransitive plural subjunctive tense. So the word ‘is’ are correct.

"Now ladies and gentlemen, you have to admit, in my sentences I go where no man has gone before. But...the way I see it is I am a boon to the English language. I’ve coined new words...I’ve expanded the definition of words themselves, using ‘vulcanized’ when I meant ‘polarized’, ‘Grecians’ when I meant ‘Greeks’, ‘inebriating’ when I meant ‘exhilarating.’ And instead of ‘barriers and tariff,’ I said ‘terriers and bariffs.’

"And you know what? Life goes on. My wife and daughters still love me. Our military still protects our shores. Americans still get up and go to work. People still go out and have fun, as we are doing tonight.

"I don’t think it’s healthy to take yourself too seriously. But what I do take seriously is my responsibility as President to all the American people...And that is what I came tonight to tell you."