tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9748383.post113278264327364281..comments2023-06-24T06:54:23.141-04:00Comments on The Chestnut Tree Cafe: The Bipartisan ProjectJim Wetzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07358539074647113747noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9748383.post-1133147296801176532005-11-27T22:08:00.000-05:002005-11-27T22:08:00.000-05:00From George Orwell's "Politics and the English Lan...From George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language":<BR/><BR/><I>In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness.</I><BR/><BR/>Really, Orwell was an amazing person. He certainly foresaw our supervisors -- in detail.Jim Wetzelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07358539074647113747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9748383.post-1132976202150470872005-11-25T22:36:00.000-05:002005-11-25T22:36:00.000-05:00high-grade management gibberishBoth Rice and Rumsf...<I>high-grade management gibberish</I><BR/><BR/>Both Rice and Rumsfeld are so schooled in the rhetoric of high-grade management gibberish that they cannot utter a simple declarative sentence -- you know, subject-verb-object. They both resort to the triple-passive voice and multi-conditional verb tenses. The goal, as always, is to obfuscate. The objective is, as always, to appear to be accessible to the press without actually saying anything. <BR/><BR/>And both Rice and Rumsfeld are numero-phobes. Unless injected with neuromuscular-relaxing agents, neither one will ever use hard and fast numbers.<BR/><BR/>Why the Bush administration thinks this is a winning strategy I don't know. It can buy <I>some</I> time, but at some point the citizenry gets cranky about not getting straight answers.Grace Nearinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07414685202654408290noreply@blogger.com