First Draft of Bush's Speech on the Border Fence Bill

Most people know that President Bush recently publicly signed a bill authorizing the building of a 700-mile long fence on the southern border between the United States and Mexico. Before passing this measure, the President delivered a short speech to explain the initiative. What you may not know is that every speech the President gives must first go through a "presidential proofreader" who checks for grammatical, factual and logical errors. Normally that draft is never seen again. Luckily, we managed to get our hands on the original speech. Below is the first draft of the President' address, complete with the proofreader' comments in bold.

Good evening. Lady and Gentleman. (There will likely be more than two people at this event so the singular is not appropriate here.)

If you're like most Americans, your number one concern is illegal aliens landing in your backyard. I understand that. As you probably know, I live on the Southern border of America

(You live in Washington D.C) and I seen them (I have seen them) sneaking across my lawn with their little green bodies, big sunglasses and giant sombreros, raking my leaves without permission. I always yell out my window at them "Hey! This is New Mexico! Go back to regular Mexico!"

(you don't live in New Mexico.) But the Vice President, like most of his fellow Democrats, tries to protect these illegal aliens by telling me that these people are citizens hired to do yard work for the United States government. (First of all, I know that we're asked to keep our comments to the text at hand, but seeing as how you yelled the above Old Mexico comment at me when I walked into the room to pick up this draft, I would just advise you to scale back your use of this phrase. Also, the Vice President is not a Democrat. I'm surprised you didn't know this, for many reasons. Finally, and most importantly, you are getting illegal aliens mixed up with space aliens. Illegal aliens do not "land" on people' lawns, nor do they have "little green bodies." Neither space nor illegal aliens have "big sunglasses." Not sure what exactly you're picturing here.)

It is important that we protect our borders. There is the very real threat that terrorists will walk up to our borders in the south and keep pushing them up further and further north until many of us are either forced to jump into the ocean or smashed between Mexico and Canada like in that bible story Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom. (Indiana Jones is not in the Bible. Also, the described threat is NOT the threat of having unprotected borders. Lifting and physically moving borders is something that only happens in cartoons. Please consult with your advisors again.)

Some aliens I like are ALF, E.T. and Punky Brewster. Some aliens I do NOT like are Darth Vader, any of Darth Vader' friends and Mork. (You again have illegal aliens confused with space aliens. This sentence is completely random and should be removed from the speech. Also, for your information, Punky Brewster was not an alien.)

That' why I'm announcing a bold new initiative to keep Mexicans, both legal and illegal (illegal only!) out of our county (country). It is a super long picket fence (check the blue prints, I don't think it will be a picket fence), approximately a yard to five thousand feet tall (there is a huge difference between one yard and five thousand feet. You need a more precise measurement) It will be several feet long (several thousand?) and there will be signs all over it that say "do not climb," both in American and in that retarded gibberish they speak down there (lets go with English and Spanish here). We should also build a huge skateboard ramp next to it, so people could jump it like that one guy did to that great wall in China. Then, the only illegal immigrants we'd get would be awesome skateboarders. (I think you might want to reassess this plan.)

Right in front of me is something called a bill. It' not a person named Bill, like most of you think. **NOTE TO SELF: Pause here for laughter. If there is enough time, go get something to drink while people are still laughing** (This joke may not get the laughs you are expecting here. Also, due to your tendency to read stage notes aloud, we might want to avoid these altogether. We don't want another situation like when you read: 'Shake hands with the black guy,' at the end of your speech welcoming Nelson Mandela. That was embarrassing on many levels.). Now before I sign it, I would like to ask everyone in the South to look down and make sure they are not stepping on the border. We will wait ten minutes so you can get out of the way. This is for your own safety. (Mister President, signing this fence bill into law will not automatically make the fence appear)

**NOTE TO SELF: Sign bill. USE CURSIVE!!!** There we go. I will now open the floor to questions. Yes, you in the outfit. I can't hear you. Are there any other questions? Yes you with the odd looking face. What? Good question, anyone here want to answer that for her? Nobody. Okay well I guess this speech is over. Go home. (The question and answer period in a speech should be unscripted. You should also plan on answering all of the questions yourself. Also, you should never end a speech with 'go home.' I'll make some adjustments and get something back to you shortly.)