http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0114heck14.html

Bush has 'heck of' an expression

James Gerstenzang Los Angeles Times Jan. 14, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - It is presidential language that would make Harry S. Truman blanch, not for its saltiness but, heck, for just the opposite.

On a daily basis, sometimes several times an hour, the word "heck" creeps into President Bush's public pronouncements. People he wants to praise as well as places, ideas and winning sports teams are all told that they have done a "heck" of a good thing.

You might think Bush would have retired the expression after Hurricane Katrina when he infamously told Michael Brown, who led the federal government's much-derided response: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

But the verbal quirk has turned up in Bush's speeches at least four times this week. One day last week, he used it four times in a 10-minute address.

"New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to come to visit. It's a heck of a place to bring your family," the president said Thursday in talking about reconstruction efforts. A day earlier, in Louisville, Ky., Bush apologized for not bringing his wife. "She is a heck of a person," he said.

The word served several linguistic purposes Jan. 5, when Bush addressed a group of university presidents. Condoleezza Rice, he said, is "a heck of a secretary of State. . . . And Don Rumsfeld is a heck of a secretary of the Defense."

Scanning his audience, Bush then addressed a group of ambassadors in the crowd. "What the heck are you doing here?" he joked. "Like, you're supposed to be - the deal was overseas."

Why all the "hecks"?

"It's a way to be a common person, and it may be who he is," said Montague Kern, a professor at Rutgers University.

"It gives impact to an idea without having to explain the idea," she said. "This is an advantage that Bush has always had, the idea that he's a common person. He's more complex than that, but that's the public persona."