If only his "favorite philosopher" had been Aristotle

I'm sure that when you saw this moment last week:

. . . you immediately had the same reaction that I did: Bush missed the perfect opportunity to work in a reference to one of the funniest moments in Book III of Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric!

The address of Gorgias to the swallow, when she had let her droppings fall on him as she flew overhead, is in the best tragic manner. He said, "Nay, shame, O Philomela". Considering her as a bird, you could not call her act shameful; considering her as a girl, you could; and so it was a good gibe to address her as what she was once and not as what she is.

I mean, honestly, it really is a howler. How could Bush--a man known to enjoy a bit of jest in season and a practitioner of the quick come-back--pass it up? All he needed to do was glance upward and say, "Nay, shame, O Cindy Sheehan!" and the crowd would have been in stitches. He'd have killed.

Also, did he really use his hand to wipe bird shit off his sleeve on national television?