Losing the plot entirely

During the recent state visit of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, President Bush told the sovereign, "You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 ... in 1976."

The anti-Bush crowd salivated in glee at this 'gaffe' by the president.

Even calling it a 'gaffe' is ridiculous. He recognized his own mistake as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

I hate it when the anti-Bush crowd seizes on trivial crap like this. I'm as anti-Bush as they come but with all the serious stuff that this guy and his cronies are doing, why waste time and energy (and your own credibility) on such silliness? It makes it easy for the president's apologists to treat all Bush critics as petty and small-minded.

And in this case, they're right. Seizing on the simple fact that he misread one word and immediately corrected himself is indeed petty and small-minded. I am in a writers' group and occasionally I stumble reading my own words. Big deal!

There are far worse things Bush's critics should be focusing on than an irrelevant, honest mistake.

Heck, you could find something more egregious in the very same speech.

Most state visits are polite, apolitical gatherings. Not this one. The president treated it as yet another chance to spout his ideological drivel.

But what most struck me is his comments praising Britain's additions to civilization.

The United Kingdom has written many of the greatest chapters in the history of human freedom. Nearly 800 years ago, the Magna Carta placed the authority of the government under the rule of law, Bush stated.

This is the same president who has ordered the cancellation of those very same provisions of the Magna Carta, by annulling habeas corpus protections and scrapping the rule of law.

But while this most grotesque hypocrisy went virtually unnoticed, the peanut gallery threw darts at him like giggly little schoolchildren for misreading one date in a speech.

With opposition like this, no wonder he got re-elected.