The media had a feeding frenzy over the fact that the German newspaper, Bild am Sonntag, quoted President Bush in an Oval Office interview as saying his best moment as president was when he caught a 7.5-pound perch on his lake in Crawford, Texas. Many were quick to jump on the fact that the world record for yellow perch is only 4 pounds 12 ounces, so that would mean the President's fish would have broken the existing record by nearly three pounds. Well, even if that report is true, his record would be short-lived, because just last week, North Korean "leader-dearest" Kim Jong Il - who also managed to shoot the greatest round of golf ever played on his first attempt (38 under par) - has claimed to have caught a 7.6-pound perch. "In your face, imperial lackey!"

The liberal media, led by noted wiseacre Bill Maher, has called for the "imperchment" of the President for lying about his "fishin' accomplished." But as it turns out, according to the official White House press office transcript of the interview  (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060507-2.html), it's all a big misunderstanding stemming from a mistranslation. What the President actually said was that he caught a 7.5-pound largemouth bass, which brings up a whole other set of issues. For one thing, it's a well-known fact that in Texas, any bass weighing less than 10 pounds is technically classified as "bait." So the President bragging about catching a 7.5-pound bass on his private, stocked lake is the rough equivalent of saying you stalked and shot a calf from your herd (V.P. Cheney was the actual trigger man though).

Another issue is the reporting of the exact weight of the bass: seven-and-a-half pounds. Usually the only people who go to the trouble of adding a half to anything are pre-schoolers who say that they are four-and-a-half years old because they're striving for the added status that separates them from those foolish and immature 4-year-olds. Oh, and also boat writers, who claim that a boat gets on plane in seven-and-half-seconds - mainly because they couldn't tell whether it was actually seven or eight. Shoot, even the IRS will allow you to round your deduction up to $8, regardless of the fact that you only paid $7.50 for that triple venti latte with extra foam at Starbucks.

Apparently, the problem stems from the fact that the reporter used the German word "barsch" when rendering the article into his native language, which according to Teuto/Anglo dictionaries, can mean either bass, perch, or pike. This lackadaisical word is a real head-scratcher when you consider that Germans appear to be a very precise people with a language to match. They even have the word "farfignuggen," which literally means "the exact warm and fuzzy feeling you get when driving a Volkswagen that you don't get while driving a Chevy." Apparently, Germans really don't care too much about fish, because other German fish names are equally villy-nilly. Take for example, "krabbe," which you would correctly guess means crab, but can also mean shrimp or prawns. That could get a Bavarian in real trouble if they agree to put a krabbe down their lederhosen. Oddly, there are two words for flounder: "flunder" and "butt," which is no doubt a rich source of material for German comedians (both of them).

All in all, "perchgate" seems to be much ado about nothing. How it even got started in the first place is puzzling; after all, it's hard to believe that anyone would ever question the word of a fisherman.