Well, at least he can pronounce "nuclear."

Through PBS podcasts during my daily jog, I've been listening to President Obama address the Arab world through the Al-Arabiyah network (for those keeping score at home, that's the Arab-language news network that despises us least).

While he makes a nice speech with a good message, I'm a little disturbed by the Chief Executive's apparent inability to properly pronounce the word espouse. He keeps saying "expouse."

I don't know if he's mentally blending espouse and expound and it's coming out his mouth as "expouse," or if the Harvard-educated president really doesn't realize that he's mispronouncing this bit of GRE vocabulary.

Could it be his Hawaii upbringing? Folks in the Aloha State can't pronounce words worth crap. And that includes a lot of the Haoles, too. Their enunciation is as bad as their driving. Trust me, that's bad.

Anyway, I'll cut Obama some slack for now. Maybe his handlers will read my blog and get him to clean up his act. And even if he never pronounces espouse correctly, at least he's not as bad as his lexically challenged predecessor. That a person with his finger on The Button couldn't help but say "nucyular" was truly frightening.

[left: President Obama appears on Al-Arabiyah. For all we know, the caption reads, "Be patient, my Muslim brothers. I will deliver the American infidels into your loving clutches in due time." Or it could be an ad ticker for Pizza Hut Dubai.]