18.2.07
Administration ponders what may have - but probably didn't - go wrong
I have to admit that I had my doubts about whether Tony Snow would be able to replace - really replace - the inimitable Scotty McClellan as Bush's chief mouthpiece. But reading the following exchange with the press removed a lot of the doubt:
"What went wrong?" the reporter reasonably asked.
Snow replied: "I'm not sure anything went wrong."
Not bad. The method is irrefutable and shows a subtle understanding of the complexities of meaning and communication: when faced with a hostile question, just shift into that mode where words no longer have the meanings that you and I usually assign them. Cut the tie between signifier and signified and make any word mean whatever you want. Don't bother trying to refute stuff using "facts" and "arguments," because in that case you've already accepted your tormentor's codes, rules, and a host of taken-for-granted assumptions. No, simply act like you don't even speak the same language as your interlocutor and dodge the whole game.
But he's still not quite there yet:
But you have -- it is pretty clear that some of the other assessments were wrong, and you deal with it.
Well, damn. So something went wrong after all. It must be hard sometimes, keeping everything straight. Thankfully, just "assessments" were at fault, though - the hundreds of thousands of deaths, disintegrating country, and deadly capital city must have been all part of the plan.
I have to admit that I had my doubts about whether Tony Snow would be able to replace - really replace - the inimitable Scotty McClellan as Bush's chief mouthpiece. But reading the following exchange with the press removed a lot of the doubt:
"What went wrong?" the reporter reasonably asked.
Snow replied: "I'm not sure anything went wrong."
Not bad. The method is irrefutable and shows a subtle understanding of the complexities of meaning and communication: when faced with a hostile question, just shift into that mode where words no longer have the meanings that you and I usually assign them. Cut the tie between signifier and signified and make any word mean whatever you want. Don't bother trying to refute stuff using "facts" and "arguments," because in that case you've already accepted your tormentor's codes, rules, and a host of taken-for-granted assumptions. No, simply act like you don't even speak the same language as your interlocutor and dodge the whole game.
But he's still not quite there yet:
But you have -- it is pretty clear that some of the other assessments were wrong, and you deal with it.
Well, damn. So something went wrong after all. It must be hard sometimes, keeping everything straight. Thankfully, just "assessments" were at fault, though - the hundreds of thousands of deaths, disintegrating country, and deadly capital city must have been all part of the plan.
