Reuters

President GWB:

"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas,"

So Reuters is calling it a gaffe. They think the President was literally referring to Nelson Mandela. Hard to know if they're deliberately playing dumb, but words are their business; they should be able to understand the quote. I wonder, though, why they're only playing half-dumb. Why not go all the way and insist that GWB was saying that Saddam had risen from the dead and killed the whole Mandela family? Ha-ha, Bush thinks Saddam went to South Africa and killed the Mandelas.

***Update: And also, I should point out, the metaphor originated in the other person's comment, "I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?" ie where's the Iraqi Mandela, where's the Iraqi George Washington. And GWB picked up on the metaphor, and answered it. So really, GWB got the metaphor, I got the metaphor, most 5th graders would get the metaphor. But Reuters didn't. So who's stupid?