I'm watching Bush and I lost track of how many times he has said -

Nu*Q* Ler ....

shouldn't our president at least know how to pronounce this word?

nū'klē-ər

Nobody razzed Jimmy Carter for this, and he was on a nucular - um, nuclear submarine fercrissake.

What's curious about this is that I never heard George H. W. Bush say it that way, so Dubya must have picked it up elsewhere.

nu‧cle‧ar  /ˈnuhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngklihttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngər, ˈnyu- or, by metathesis, -kyəhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnglər/[noo-klee-er, nyoo- or, by metathesis, -kyuh-ler]

—Pronunciation note In pronouncing nuclear, the second and third syllables are most commonly said as /-klihttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngər/[-klee-er], a sequence of sounds that directly reflects the spelled sequence ‑cle‧ar. In recent years, a somewhat controversial pronunciation has come to public attention, with these two final syllables said as /-kyəhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnglər/[-kyuh-ler]. Since /-klihttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngər/[-klee-er], the common pronunciation of ‑cle‧ar, might also be represented, broadly, as /-kləhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngyər/[-kluh-yer], the /-kyəhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pnglər/[-kyuh-ler]pronunciation can be seen as coming from a process of metathesis, in which the /l/[l] and the /y/[y] change places. The resulting pronunciation is reinforced by analogy with such words as molecular, particular, and muscular, and although it occurs with some frequency among highly educated speakers, including scientists, professors, and government officials, it is disapproved of by many.


Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

President Bush may actually be smarter than all of us seeing as how he was familiar with the rare, albeit acceptable alternative pronunciation of nuclear.

That's one way of lukin at it.