Clarity on Clearity

I heard a quote from Sen. Arlen Specter (R - Pennsylvania), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on NPR yesterday talking about the "nucular" option Republican senators may use to stop fillibusters over certain judicial nominees.

Anyone who has his (or her) hand mere inches from the proverbial button to destroy all life on Earth had damn-well better know that those are nucLEAR weapons and not nucULAR. Ok, I know this has been moaned about ad nauseum for the past six years, but now our senators are getting confused. Is this a sign of the times that a (relatively) moderate Republican senator is now toeing the line on how to pronounce "nuclear?" President (shudder) Bush is big on loyalty, is he now insisting that his fellow Republicans now speak the way he does? Is he planning on snowing America, like he has on so many other issues, on how to speak now, too? Perhaps Americans have "nucular" weapons/options/etc. and it makes it all friendly-like where we would like to invite those bombs over for a barbecue and a chat over the benefits of school prayer, whereas anyone who has "nuclear" weapons are holding weapons of mass destruction and are going straight to Hell (after we destroy their homes and families, of course). It's our own Minispeak. 1984 is here, just twenty years late.