Last June my daughter brought home a summer reading list for her upcoming AP U.S. Government class. She went through the list and picked the books that she wanted to read and Going Nucular
As far as nucular goes, Mr. Nunberg seems to think that President Bush’s pronunciation is a “thinko” (or on purpose) rather than a “typo” (because he is unable to pronounce it). I tend to agree with that assessment, as I am not one to fall into the “he’s really dumb” stereotype of our president.
Going Nucular is basically a reprint of columns written over the first few years of this decade. Nunberg has given us some unique insights into language use and misuse. He probably wouldn’t like my writing style.
Unfortunately, most of the book is written from an obvious left bias. Here is an excerpt from one of his columns; “Bush’s language has become a less important issue for his American critics, too. Not that they don’t still regard him an ignorant bumpkin (or worse, a pseudo-bumpkin) who embarrasses the country, but now they’re concerned that he’s making America look bad in much more dangerous ways.”
I had to labor through the book and I am glad that I did, as some of his later columns in the book were very interesting. I also noticed that those columns were not political. I found his tendency to use conservatives in most of his critiques disingenuous. There should be plenty of examples on both sides of the political aisle.
I’ll admit to reading this from my more conservative perspective, but this is a book that you can skip. I question why a teacher would suggest this a reading assignment unless a book from the other side balances it. I suggested that she read Bias by Bernard Goldberg. She hasn’t and I suspect her teacher hasn’t either.
