Josh Marshall has an interesting post about the speech President Bush made before the Australian Parliment the other week.
As Mr. Marshall had noted then, one sentence seemed rather strange:
“We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people.”
At first glance this seems like the familiar boilerplate commendation a visiting dignitary might make of a free and democratic country. The only problem being that Mr. Bush was in Australia and China is far from a free and democratic country. The freedom of the Chinese people is not often first and foremost on the agenda of the Chinese Government.
Most observers passed this sentence off as the usual gaffe of the type Mr. Bush is prone to. It appears the White House archivists agree. The official transcript from the White House Website has the word “sees” changed to “seeks”.
The sentence now reads:
“We seek a China that is stable and prosperous — a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people.”
Just to show that the sentence was, in fact, changed, Mr. Marshall has posted a pdf file of the original transcript.
One letter, big difference.
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