Speechreading becomes a LOT harder with accents! I can lipread some, if my tv is muted or someone is talking to me from far away or whatever, but you ask me to lipread a British speaker and I'm SOOO lost. The same goes for southern speakers or Northeast speakers, although that's not as bad as British speakers, (I'm from the southwest, so maybe southerns/ new yorkers have trouble lipreading ppl from here, idk).
And also, as well as know, facial hair, speed, and annunciation, play a huge part. I think ur biggest problem, julyrain, may be that George Bush doesn't annunciate well, he mumbles at times.