The Tangled Web

"Some folks overseas," like me, believe Bush to be criminally inept. Then again, I'm sure he would strongly disagree. Here's an interesting insight into the propaganda machine:

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" - conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making. [...]

A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as "a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.

"It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people," Fields said. "All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff."

A painful, unspoken aspect of this report is that Bush likely doesn't even understand the nature or function of the rhetoric he's being told to spout. He's omitting nuances of debate which, given his past performance, he seems unable even to perceive.