"New-clee-ar," not "Nuke-cule-ar"

From OpinionJournal

Best of the Web Today - September 21, 2006
By JAMES TARANTO

Michael Medved was among a group of talk show hosts who visited President Bush for an off-the-record briefing last week, and on his TownHall.com blog he describes the meeting. He ends with this:

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Twice during his meandering conversation, the President deployed the word "nuclear." Both times, he pronounced it flawlessly--as "new-clee-ar," not "nuke-cule-ar." Considering the huge press attention on the mis-pronounciation [sic] of this single word, nothing shocked me more about meeting the president than hearing him, in private conservation, avoid a mistake for which he's become celebrated in public.

If he can say "nu-clee-ar" in private, why does he still say, "nuke-cule-ar" when he speaks on camera? Could it be possible that there's some mischievous intent here--that the President deliberately gives his own spin to the word just to provoke pompous pundits into paroxysms of supercilious rage? It seems like a far-fetched explanation, I'll admit, but after seeing the President's infectiously feisty mood this Friday, I wouldn't put it past him.

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