Cheney-speak on the Lieberman defeat

By Lee Russ

Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 05:00 PM

We have a president who has trouble speaking in full, grammatical sentences, and a vice-president who has one of the strangest speaking patterns I've ever heard.  Here's the Vice-prez on Joe Lieberman's primary defeat (emphasis added):

I know Joe Lieberman and have a good deal of respect for him given that we were opponents in the 2000 campaign; and of course, spent a fair amount of time watching the man and studying him over the years, especially in connection with our debate in 2000. And as I look at what happened yesterday, it strikes me that it's a perhaps unfortunate and significant development from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, that what it says about the direction the party appears to be heading in when they, in effect, purge a man like Joe Lieberman, who was just six years ago their nominee for Vice President, is of concern, especially over the issue of Joe's support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror.

Mind you it may be unfortunate.  Which means it may not be.

And purged Lieberman over "Joe's support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror?"  Wow.  I wonder if he could possibly come up with that phrasing off the top of his head.

Lieberman obviously was not "purged" period, although use of that term probably was demonstrated in some focus group to have really nasty connotations by harking back to the old Russian communist purges.

To the extent he was rejected, it was certainly not over support for "national efforts in the global war on terror."  It was it part based on support for a war which is going very badly and which did not need to be fought.  Not to mention that the powers that be also have lied about the need for it, bungled the conduct of it, and botched the occupation aftermath so badly that I'm sure it will be taught for decades as an example of how not to do it.

I get the feeling that somewhere in the D.C. area there's a never-ending, 24-hour a day course titled "The Use of Semantics to Lead and Deceive."  If you ever have trouble locating one of the Repub elites in D.C., check out wherever they teach that course.  I'm sure you'll find them there, greasing their lips and oiling their tongues.  All the better to conduct the " national efforts in the global war on terror."  Or as it's know in the semantic classroom "nat-eff-GWOT."

Where's the exit door?