Saturday, September 13, 2014

John McWhorter - Obama’s Wartime Weasel Words

via: The Daily Beast

The president can call it what he wants. But it’s war. You know, where we kill lots of people. Maybe they deserve it. But we should say it. President Obama is known for having a way with words, especially when he has a script. Ironically, Wednesday night that facility with words helped him avoid telling us that we are entering into another war.

Rather, we are to suppose we are entering into, well, an “action,” as in “any time we take military action, we …” But action refers to doing, and what exactly are we doing here? For one, we will be “doing” some dropping of bombs on people from the air. On a lot of people, and for a long time. Nobody in Game of Thrones would recognize that as “action,” as opposed to war.

Read complete article here.