Juntos Pedemos and the Fart-Joke Presidency

I think by now it's understood that the slogan "Together We Can" is not original to the Deval Patrick campaign, but I ran across a connection that the Globe missed.

After hearing a podcast of it, I read a Slate article titled Bush's Fart-Joke Legacy, which documents that the Leader of the Free World can't get enough of fart jokes, and contains this passage, for example:

Perhaps you are puzzled that the president of the United States would embrace so eagerly a genre of humor that the typical male Homo sapiens stops finding irresistible around the age of 12. But [Carl] Woodward is not the first to report on Bush's fondness for fart jokes, and Bush is not the first member of his family to display this particular affliction.

But guess what?

...in 2000 the Houston Chronicle (according to Texas Monthly's "Bum Steer Awards") mistranslated into Spanish the inaugural theme of President Bush's second gubernatorial term, "Together We Can." Instead of Juntos Podemos, the paper translated the phrase as Juntos Pedemos, which means "Together We Fart."

Attempts to contact members of Consuming Beer, Sausage, and Beans Liberally in Massachussets were unsuccessful.

Originally posted at Blue Mass Group Fri Oct 27, 2006 at 11:58:51 AM EDT