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!"

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!"

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.
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
Right in front of me is something called a bill. It' not a person named Bill, like most of you think.
**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.)