"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this"

[robinturner]

Today I read the transcript of Kerry's speech in the senate on the decision to go to war in Iraq, largely because I was still uncertain as to what his position really was. Someone mentioned that Kerry had a "sane foreign policy" and I was curious as to whether this implied opposition to invading random countries. After pondering it for some time, I think I understand what Kerry was saying, which was that Saddam had WMD and should be removed from power by a multilateral force, but he should not be removed from power unilaterally unless attempts to do so multilaterally had failed and there was an imminent threat. In other words, there was no significant difference in his position from that of Bush, who also preferred (and to a large extent got) a multilateral solution (which of course is not the same as a legitimate solution, or a sensible solution).

The reason it took me so long to work out what Kerry was saying is that the similarity to Bush does not end here: just as Kerry is "Bush Lite" with regard to policy, he is "Bush Literate" when it comes to language. Consider the following: "I know for Senator Hagel, Senator McCain, and myself, when we pick up the newspapers and read about the residuals of the Vietnam war, there is a particular sensitivity because I do not think any of us feel a residual with respect to the choices we are making now." Feel a residual what? What on earth does this sentence mean?

Comments

[aguirre.livejournal.com]

hmmm I just spent 10 minutes trying to impersonate kerry as a joke for my reply, but I kept losing track of what I was saying...

[vret.livejournal.com]

I think he meant to say that they don't have any residual feelings (whatever that means), but tried to make it sound more active by turning the objective noun into the verb, and then had to use its adjective as the noun (to avoid saying that they just didn't feel a feeling). What he should have done is made the adjective an adverb instead, then it would have been really incomprehensible (I don't think any of us feel residually...).