So farewell then, Dubya. It is with tears in our eyes that we watch you leave the stage after eight tumultuous years, though in my case they are tears of appreciative laughter.

I defy anyone to watch one of those internet anthologies of Bushisms - the gaffes and bloopers of the outgoing president - without a sense of wonderment at his Prescottian battles with the English language.

In his gift for surreal improvisation, he resembles an unintentional Paul Merton, a linguistic Dadaist armed with nuclear weapons and a worrying sense that God is on his side. No longer will the White House be inhabited by a man who blissfully jumbles Slovakia and Slovenia, who fears for the fate of the "Kosovians", or who believes the secret of Balkan stability is "to keep good relations with the Grecians", with their lustrous black locks.

We say goodbye to the global strategist whose sunny optimism still persuades him Japan and America have "had a peaceful alliance for 150 years" - something of a revelation to the people of Pearl Harbour and Hiroshima - and we say goodbye to the conservative thinker and moralist who understands "families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream", and yet finds compassion for the unmarried mother of two. "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family," he told her. We can all attest to that truth, especially when they won't keep still.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/13/1231608701814.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1