Bush ‘Shit’ Utterance Gives Media Editors Pause, New York Times a Watershed Moment

President Bush‘s “shit” was picked up by microphone during a conversation with Tony Blair at the G8 Summit earlier today, giving media editors and copy chiefs a chance to answer a question they’ve been faced with often: Do we print “shit”?

CBSNews.com, for one, did:

“See the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this sh*t and it’s over,” Mr. Bush told Blair as he chewed on a buttered roll.

The New York Times posted a Reuters article about the “shit” utterance on its Web site:

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) — A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hizbollah to “stop doing this shit” and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon.

For the New York Times, it appeared to be a watershit, err, watershed moment, as a quick search of their archives revealed it had never used “shit” in its history.

As E&P notes, The Associated Press has refrained:

“See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive),” Bush told Blair in a discussion before the Group of Eight leaders began their lunch.

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