The predecessor to this volume was published in January 2001, during the brief interval between coronation and inauguration. The book began to sell, George W. Bush was sworn in, and I continued to wonder about one question: How did Bush feel about Bushisms? Was he chuckling along, Reagan-style, or percolating with Nixonian rage?

My puzzlement came to an end a few months later at the White House Correspondents Dinner when the president fulfilled my authorial fantasy by waving Slate's book of George W. Bushisms at 1,500 reporters. "Most of you probably didn't know that I have a new book out," he exclaimed, before launching into a reading. Repeating his line, "I believe the human being and fish can coexist peacefully," the president declared: "Anyone can give you a coherent sentence, but something like this takes you into an entirely new dimension." Bush recited several other classics ("make the pie higher," "more and more of our imports come from overseas"), before commending himself again. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have to admit, in my sentences I go where no man has gone before," he said.

The performance was, as the president likes to say, fabulous! Bill Clinton used to show up at these events and self-deprecate through clenched teeth. But Bush wasn't just rolling with the punches, he was running with them. If our president was an international laughingstock, he was at least a laughing laughingstock. Of course, W. being W., he committed a Bushism or two while discussing Bushisms. "I've coined new words, like, 'misunderstanding' and 'Hispanically,' " he noted. I believe he intended to say "misunderestimate," one of his signatures, but believing that to be an actual word, he was temporarily boggled by his own prepared text. So what do you call it when Bush, attempting a Bushism, stumbles and accidentally uses a word correctly? A reverse Bushism? A Bushismism?

In any case, it was impossible not to reciprocate this display of presidential goodwill. I soon found myself paroling Bushisms that might be excused as mere quirks of West Texas dialect, such as "nucular" for "nuclear," "tireously" for "tirelessly," "explayed" for "displayed," and, in what sounded like a kind of Tex-Mex omelet, "Infitada," for "Intifada." I let Bush's waving to Stevie Wonder at a concert -- a visual Bushism, you had to see it to appreciate it -- pass without comment.

When Bush sent the yen plunging by saying he'd spoken with the Japanese prime minister about "devaluation" (he was supposed to say "deflation"), I let it slide. And when he provoked a diplomatic crisis by accusing North Korea of violating agreements on nuclear weapons (there's only one agreement and no evidence of North Korea breaking it), that passed unmentioned as well. Surely, as one White House spinner proposed, the president was referring to possible future agreements that North Korea might sign and then violate. I found you could explain away a lot of slips once you bought into the notion that, as one aide put it, that's just how the president speaks.

After September 11, I stopped publishing Bushisms in Slate. This decision provoked considerable complaint from readers. Bush had urged the nation to get back to normal. What could be more normal than making fun of W.? Who was I to violate a presidential directive? My feeling, though, was that Bushisms had ceased to be funny. If the commander-in-chief was indeed a few bricks short of a load, we'd all better shut up about it and pray Dick Cheney was ordering the salmon. I figured I'd wait until The Evil One had been finished off, then get back to my collection. But six months on, Osama bin Laden was no longer much discussed, at least in Republican circles. And I had to admit, I was finding the Bushisms that readers and friends continued to send in funny again. So Slate's "Bushism of the Day" feature came back to life.

My job had not gotten any easier during the interim. Under the ever-watchful eyes of Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, the war-president was speaking in public less frequently and less spontaneously. The image team was no longer turning him loose on audiences with five hours sleep and no prepared text. In another blow, the White House Press Office began cleaning up its official transcripts of the president's remarks. I was no longer traveling with the president and depended on the verbatim accuracy of these accounts. If Bush said something about people working hard to put food on their families or removing the federal cuff link, would I even hear about it?

Happily, I still have my sources. Karen has gone home to Texas. And, despite Karl's best efforts, there are still those magical days when the president, without enough sleep or exercise, staggers out onto the White House lawn, searches in vain for a TelePrompTer, squints at the distant horizon, and opens his mouth. "And so, in my State of the--my State of the Union--or state--my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation--I asked Americans to give 4,000 years--4,000 hours over the next--the rest of your life--of service to America. That's what I asked--4,000 hours." If I miss one of these moments, a helpful colleague in attendance or an alert Slate reader tuned in to C-Span generally brings it to my attention.

Back to you, Mr. President.