A Telling Slip of the Tongue?

Something that Bush said during a press conference with the President of Indonesia today struck me as a bit odd. I just went and checked the transcript, and discovered what it was about Bush’s phrasing that seemed slightly unsavory to me:

Bush: Americans hold a deep respect for the Islamic faith, which is professed by a growing number of my own citizens.

Americans are now George Bush’s citizens? Shouldn’t it be “my fellow citizens,” or “my own country’s citizens,” or at least “our own citizens?” I know it’s nitpicky, but to me such phrasing makes it sound like we belong to him. Either that, or it’s a case of “L’etat, c’est moi.” Regardless, I don’t like what such slips — inadvertent though they may be — reveal about Bush’s mindset.

Kash