Would you buy a used car from George W. Bush? Maybe not, but in announcing plans to help homeowners threatened by the subprime mortgage slump, Bush made use of a euphemism often used by car dealers.

Bush said he would help the Federal Housing Administration “to reach families that need help, those with low incomes and less-than-perfect credit records or little savings.” 

When I hear “less than perfect credit” in a television or radio ad, my internal translation machine instantly renders it as “deadbeats.”  It’s the same apparatus that converts “at-risk youth” to “juvenile delinquent.”

Very few people have perfect credit, in the sense of not a single late payment sometime in their life. Very many people are high-risk borrowers whose business is still of interest to finance companies as long as the interest rate is commensurate with their, er, imperfection.

Let’s hope Bush’s use of this term doesn’t carry over into other policy areas. I don’t think Congress will be reassured, for example, if Gen. David Petraeus reports next month that the leaders of Iraq have made “less than perfect” progress toward a reconciliation that would allow U.S. troops to come home.