Musings from Brian J. Noggle

All Aboard, We've Been Expecting You....

It's hard to tell if the author and the sources for this piece in Time are helping Kerry, or damning him. Explaining why John Kerry sounds like an unprincipled opportunist when he's just the opposite:

Kerry's verbal meanderings are partly a reflection of a mind that sees complexity in almost every issue. The son of a diplomat, educated partly in boarding schools in Europe, Kerry learned to look at current affairs from multiple perspectives. Says an adviser: "It's not like he's trying to shade the truth. He overintellectualizes his explanations." Asked by TIME in a March interview whether the Iraq war would be worth the costs if no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, Kerry replied, "No, I think you can still — wait, no. You can't — that's not a fair question. You can wind up successful in transforming Iraq and changing the dynamics, and that may make it worth it, but that doesn't mean [transforming Iraq] was the cause [that provided the] legitimacy to go." Kerry may in fact be right when he argues that a successful outcome does not justify an illegitimate war, but a listener has to work hard to understand his point.

You got that? No? Put a little effort into understanding it, and you'll come away with the message that John Kerry is too smart for you to understand.

Perhaps the Kerry campaign should not deploy senators whose understanding of nuance match Kerry's own:

"If you look at his public career, it's been just the opposite. He's not been unclear on the environment, on labor and education issues," says former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey. "His reputation in the Senate is that you can trust his word. If he believes in something, he'll fight for it."

Got it?

Kerry's not been unclear.
This does not say that he has been clear. Just that he is not unclear.
His reputation ... is that you can trust his word.
This does not say that you can trust John Kerry's word. This says his reputation is that you can trust his word. He's got Senate cred, werd.
If he believes in something, he'll fight for it.
This does not address whether Kerry says what he believes, nor whether he will fight for what he says he'll fight for, or anything, really.

Thanks for not being a cartoonish or obfuscating character, little Kerrey. No, that sort of babble conveys precisely the slippery meaning the speaker intends, and both Kerry and Kerrey know it. They just have to tell the American people that they don't, sort of, know it or mean it except when they don't not.

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM