So it comes down to this.
If we elect John Kerry as President, the terrorists will be so (what?)—encouraged that we’re still foolish enough to believe in democracy(?)—that they’ll re-attack the United States in some devastating fashion. Re-electing Bush is the only way to save ourselves. The terrorists would never dare attack us with Bush in the White House (again, at least) because they know if they did, Bush would let their leader pass endlessly back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan and we’d turn our attention instead to some country that had absolutely nothing to do with the attack but who by attacking Bush could pose for some wicked cool photo-ops in a flight jacket.
Yeah, yeah, I know, but nothing deserves mocking more than the shamefully irresponsible speech Dick Cheney made in Des Moines. When did this sort of scaremongering start passing for leadership?
We’re now at that point where we’re making that kind of decision for the next 30 or 40 years, and it’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again. That we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we’ll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we’re not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.
Now I can parse that myself in ways that give the VP the benefit of doubt and, by employing convoluted nuance, spin it so it suggests he means that Kerry’s plan will not be agressive enough, that it won’t pursue and “get” the terrorists before they get us, but he doesn’t actually say that. He said “if we make the wrong choice [and in context that means if we elect Kerry], then the danger is that we’ll get hit again.” Besides, this is the Administration that pooh-poohs nuance for more direct, forceful rhetoric, so they can’t demand nuance to explain away their shameful scare tactics. Cheney is trying to scare Americans into voting for him. Americans deserve better.
National Enquirer meet presidential politics.
Bush Cheney: Bringing the same honor and respect the WWF enjoys to the White House.
Edward
This is from a pretty funny take on Cheney in the recent Rolling Stone. Here’s the opening paragraph:
“Should George W. Bush win this election, it will give him the distinction of being the first occupant of the White House to have survived naming Dick Cheney to a post in his administration. The Cheney jinx first manifested itself at the presidential level back in 1969, when Richard Nixon appointed him to his first job in the executive branch. It surfaced again in 1975, when Gerald Ford made Cheney his chief of staff and then — with Cheney’s help — lost the 1976 election. George H.W. Bush, having named Cheney secretary of defense, was defeated for re-election in 1992. The ever-canny Ronald Reagan was the only Republican president since Eisenhower who managed to serve two full terms. He is also the only one not to have appointed Dick Cheney to office. ”
Don’t have to spin very far to get to the normal interpretation–especially considering it wasn’t scripted.
“…and that we’ll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we’re not really at war.”
This is the modifier explaining what will happen if Kerry is elected.
It is interesting that in order to get the interpretation you desire, the AP committed a huge journalistic no-no by snipping out the portion of the sentence I just quoted.
Not in the same sentence in the original transcript. See The Washington Post:
“In a change that highlighted the sensitivity of Cheney’s statement, the White House yesterday released a revised version of the transcript of his remarks. The official transcript, posted on the White House Web site Tuesday afternoon and e-mailed to reporters, said: “(I)t’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again.”
In a version released Tuesday to reporters traveling with Cheney, however, the period at the end of “hit again” was removed and replaced with a comma, which linked his blunter statement to his standard stump language expressing concern that future attacks would be treated as “just criminal acts, and that we’re not really at war.”
Yesterday, the transcript on the White House Web site was altered to make Cheney’s remarks one sentence. Cheney’s White House spokesman, Kevin Kellems, issued a statement saying that the first official transcript “contained a typographical error” and was an “interim draft.” “These types of corrections are not uncommon in the transcription of verbal statements,” Kellems said. “The final transcript accurately reflects the statement as delivered, which is clear when watching video of the event.”
I can verify that, I was looking at the White House transcript on the website yesterday morning and it said “Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again,” full stop, before launching into the usual distortion about Kerry’s pre-9/11 mindset and wanting to treat this as a purely law enforcement matter.
It is interesting that in order to get the interpretation you desire, the AP committed a huge journalistic no-no by snipping out the portion of the sentence I just quoted.
I don’t desire an interpretation of this. I’m taking what he said at face value. There is something to be said for putting important qualifiers BEFORE an alarming statement like that though. Cheney didn’t feel the need.
I’m sure the entire paragraph was structured carefully so that the message the AP took away from it was the one the listeners remembered as well.
Sebastian
I see that in Edward’s post above. Are you stating otherwise? Did Edward update or something?
I note that Glenn Reynolds recently excerpted a sentence from a thinking-out-loud Matt Yglesias paragraph, drawing a certain amount of discussion of whether that’s a no-no (I thought it was, since the sentence gave an incorrect view of Matt’s opinion).
Here I don’t care to mind-read Cheney, but at the least he was playing with much more fire than he should have been. I think the retraction was obliged to be a bit more forthright and personal, too.
This reminds me of the debate around Cheney’s “he has reconstituted nuclear weapons” on Meet The Press. Cheney’s defenders–including a lot of liberals trying too hard to be fair and balanced–have said he clearly misspoke, and have accused Democrats who use that quote as evidence of deception of dishonesty and spin. (Even the redoubtable Spinsanity bought into it, I think.)
I believe Cheney probably did misspeak. But Cheney never said so. If you utter a false statement of that magnitude on national television, you have a responsibility to correct it!
If you utter a statement that can be fairly read to say that if you elect John Kerry, and only if you elect John Kerry, the terrorists will attack (I still think that is the most accurate reading)–you have a responsibility to retract or clarify it yourself, and make it clear that you do NOT believe that! A*s covering modifications in the official transcript and explanations by your spokesperson do not cut it.
Have to agree wholeheartedly with Marguerite on this one. Lobbing something like that out there and in order to let it have its desired effect on the public and then only moderately patching it up via spokespeople and punctuation is slimy politics on an issue we should be able to expect the very finest behavior from our leaders.
Sebastian, Cheney may have misspoken, but the AP is correct in its interpretation.
If … then … and that.
So if Kerry is elected, there will be an attack, and Kerry will treat it as a law enforcement matter.
That’s not the way I read it. If we make the wrong decision in November, we’ll get hit again. Cheney *implied* that there will be an attack if Kerry is elected, but that’s not what he said. He said “the danger is” we’ll get hit if we make “the wrong choice”. Now, as far as I’m concerned, Bush/Cheney is the “wrong choice”; Cheney presumably doesn’t agree. (Jack Balkin did a nice send- up of this.)
Now, if you’re going to be successful in politics, you have to have the ability to say *exactly* what you want to say, with full knowledge of the implications. Cheney is certanly successful; he knows what he’s saying. Now, most folks can’t tell the difference between a statement and an implication; that’s why this sort of thing works.
Or maybe Cheney’s meds are just out of balance.
“If you utter a statement that can be fairly read to say that if you elect John Kerry, and only if you elect John Kerry, the terrorists will attack”
This interpretation is even further than edward’s and is frankly not supported by the actual speech. I also note that the notoriously conservative LA Times had the comma instead of a period at the point in question.
Cheney: That we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we’ll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we’re not really at war.
Is it just me or does this sentence not make any sense? I’ve been staring at it for the longest time and I finally realized what’s been bothering me: he’s reversed the two clauses in such a way that the implicit causality is reversed. His point looks like it should have been that if we make “the wrong choice” — whatever the hell that means — then a) we’ll fall back into the “pre-9/11 mindset”, so that b) we’ll be “hit in a way that will be devastating” — presumably a not-so-coded reference to 9/11.
That, however, isn’t what he actually said. He’s said that if we make that “wrong choice” then b) we’ll get “hit in a way that will be devastating” so that a) we’ll fall back into the “pre-9/11 mindset”. Think about that for a moment: filling in his deliberate blanks, he’s implicitly asserting that if Kerry is elected, we’ll not only get hit by terrorists again but that we’ll subsequently capitulate in some unspecified way. That’s either a horrific misspeaking or an evilly cunning piece of political rhetoric, and knowing Cheney I’m not willing to guess which.
Cheney speaking ambiguously? I’m shocked, i tell you, just shocked.
So, partisans like Sebastian can jump to his defense, and partisans like Edward [and I] try to muster up another jet of outrage.
feh. this has all the originality and energy of bad karaoke. Cheney is the designated point man for throwing red meat to the base. [Apparently Zell Miller went too far even for the admin.] He’s going to say stuff like this at every opportunity he can between now and election day. The extremists will hear want they want to hear [Vote Republican or the terrorists have won!] Front page journalists excerpt the portion of the speech that serves their interests. Newspaper editorialists go tsk, tsk. And bloggers parse punctuation for meaning. Bloggers really come in last here; engaging in the analysis of the punctuation of a speech made orally has got to be one of the dumber things I’ve heard in a while.
there’s a line from an old Simon & Garfunkel song that seems appropriate: “Kodachrome!”
No, wait, that’s not it. Here we go: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”
So I hear a mean old campaigner repeating a key campaign theme: a vote for the other guy is a vote for terror. it’s hardly news.
Francis
you’re a jadeder man than I am Francis…nice rant though!
francis
Is that line from “The Boxer”?
And could the firing of Bush Campaign spokesman Terry Holt have anything to do with Cheney’s comment?
In the middle of a campaign will the press even notice and speculate upon the firing of a republican campaign spokesman?
“And could the firing of Bush Campaign spokesman Terry Holt have anything to do with Cheney’s comment?”
Maybe it could have something to do with Holt calling reporters the scum of the earth”.
I saw “the scum of the earth” comment. I assume this administration would think the reporting of that comment just strengthened some of their red state base.
WRT “scum of the earth” comment, please see above post.
hmmm. my outrage supply seems to be out. must recharge.
hey! has anyone heard that gwb defied the direct order of a superior officer while in the TANG and got away with it?
Francis
That’s one thing going for the current administration: Even when you’re well runs dry they seem to give impetus to dig a little deeper.
He defied a direct order not once but twice. But who really cares as long as the economy and the war in Iraq have “turned the corner”.
Turning a corner like Chevy Chase in European Vacation.
“Look kids. Parliament”
It’s all down hill from here kids!
Ipse Dixit
Pondering tomorrow’s vice-presidential debate from here in my sickbed (thanks, tonsil infection), an interesting thought occurs to me: Edwards can slap Cheney like a $5 whore, if he plays his cards right. Here’s how: Obviously, Cheney is more articulat…
Ipse Dixit
Pondering tomorrow’s vice-presidential debate from here in my sickbed (thanks, tonsil infection), an interesting thought occurs to me: Edwards can slap Cheney like a $5 whore, if he plays his cards right. Here’s how: Obviously, Cheney is more articulat…