James Taranto is Funny

James Taranto, who, it was my honor, to meet recently somewhere south of the range of Hizb Allah rockets and other ballisticals, published this in the World Street Journal and it is funny:

He quotes Reuters reporting from St. Petersburg, Russia:

A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this [scatological vulgarity]" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon.

Reuters, which considers terrorism taboo, actually quotes the vulgarity, which we've omitted, in part because this Web site is published by a family newspaper and in part because we're not sure the president didn't actually say "Shiite".