The Flow of Conversation

I know sometimes The Corner is hard to follow if you read from the top down. So, because of that and because I think that we could use a little funny here today, I've extracted this exchange from The Corner:

BIRTHDAYS [K. J. Lopez]
Yesterday was George W. Bush's as well. My favorite conversation with him is one he had with someone a foot or so away from me. And it wasn't actually the conversation that I cared about. It was the greeting. "Como estas, baby?" And she didn't melt, so I had to conclude she'd heard it before.
Posted at 03:31 PM

FORKED TONGUE [John Derbyshire]
Kathryn: No offense to the recipient of the President's greeting, nor to the President himself, and least of all to you, but near the top of a list of Constitutional Amendments I favor is one that would prohibit elected officials of the U.S. govt. from publicly speaking any language other than English while in office.
Posted at 03:45 PM

¡CARAMBA! [López ]
Oh please. It was at a cocktail party and I'll contend to my dying day it was just way cool. And be a tad jealous.
Posted at 03:47 PM

ANOTHER LANGUAGE, DERB? [JPod]
What about "Ich bin ein Berliner"? What about Calvin Coolidge declaiming verses from Catullus?
Posted at 03:52 PM


RE: FORKED TONGUE [John Derbyshire]
On St. Cal's behalf, I shall rewrite my constitution to permit dead languages ONLY. Our President will then be free to greet visitors in Sanskrit, Amamaic, or Linear B.

"Ich bin ein Berliner" means "I am a jelly donut." See the pitfalls here?
Posted at 04:04 PM


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Whew that was more work than I thought it would be. But if you guessed that the mention of "Linear B" was my favorite part, you were right :)