Some thoughtful thoughts about our fearless leader and his lack of language, and what that says, by Joseph Duemer

Not sure if my recent discussions with Chris Robinson fit into this discussion or not, but here's what we've been chewing on. What's pretty clear is that understanding the way that language works--in a sort of feedback loop with physical reality--is crucial to philosophy, ethics, education, politics & . . . everything. In the US right now we have a political leader who has no effective relationship to language at all & I'd want to argue that our political discourse has become blunted & vulgar as a result:

"I'm a patient man. And when I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man. Nothing he [Saddam Hussein] has done has convinced me—I'm confident the Secretary of Defense—that he is the kind of fellow that is willing to forgo weapons of mass destruction, is willing to be a peaceful neighbor, that is—will honor the people—the Iraqi people of all stripes, will—values human life. He hasn't convinced me, nor has he convinced my administration."—Crawford, Texas, Aug. 21, 2002 [noted by Jacob Weisberg, creator of Bushisms]. [read more]

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Inarticulate, and proud of it

'I'M A PATIENT man,'' President Bush said the other day. He was dressed in cowboy clothes. ''And when I say I'm a patient man,'' he added, somewhat impatiently, ''I mean I'm a patient man.'' The president was responding to reporters' attempts to make sense of the administration's scorching but confusing rhetoric about Iraq. His declaration of patience amended his declarations of war, seeking to douse expectations of imminent attack while promising that hostile action will come eventually.

The nation is beholding something that can only be called weird. Ever since Bush announced his new doctrine of preventive war last spring, his administration has been engaged in an unprecedented war of words aimed at Saddam Hussein.

In the beginning, the justification for ''regime change'' in Baghdad was entirely a matter of the threat Hussein represents but no more. Now the justification includes protecting the integrity of threat. We have to go to war now because we said we would. Language is no longer an expression of purpose but the shaper of purpose.

The United States, in fact, is in a crisis of language. This is what it means to have a president who, proudly inarticulate, has no real understanding of the relationship between words and acts, between rhetoric and intention. [read more]

thanks to reading & writing