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Strategery is a term reportedly first used by political satirists to mimic occasional semantic errors of George W. Bush when he was a candidate for President of the United States.
Both George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, have been criticized for their occasional pattern of using illogical phrases and idiosyncratic words. Such damaging quotations have sometimes been dubbed as "Bushisms" by the Bushes' political opponents.
In an April 22, 2001 article, Washington Post staff writer Dana Milbank reported that Saturday Night Live comedian Will Ferrell coined the term in a broadcast (aired 7 October 2000) satirizing the performance of two presidential candidates during a debate [1] (http://www.kencollier.org/classes/PSC448/readings448/SeriousStrategery.html). The show was later released as a video tape titled Presidential Bash 2000 [2] (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004UEDY/102-1769858-4596109?v=glance), released February 27, 2001. The tape features actual appearances by Bush and his opponent Vice President Al Gore.
A February 9, 2001, transcript of a Cable News Network interview attributes George Bush using the term [3] (http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0102/09/ip.00.html).
Several other sources say the word arrived in the Whitehouse as part of a series of practical jokes left by members of the President Bill Clinton administration as they moved out of the Whitehouse. Alleged pranks, which led to calls for investigations by some other government agencies, included removing the letter "W" from Whitehouse keyboards and an improvised door sign denoting a supposed "Office of Strategery".
The Internet Movie Database says Bush frequently uses the phrase strategery meetings as a term for cabinet meetings because Will Ferrell used it in portraying Bush on SNL. Affectionately embracing satirical portrayals has been a Bush tactic at other times, such as when he quipped with a broadcaster's association about looking for weapons of mass destruction in the oval office after the political comic strip Doonesbury satirically portrayed him on a similar bizarre search.
The term is now widely used in popular discourse, often mockingly by Bush's critics who are unaware that satirists likely coined the term and that Bush now uses the term as a ludibrium to trivialize barbs by critics.
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