If you’ve been a regular Gentle Reader of Liberty’s Torch for any length of time, you’re surely aware of two things about my crap:
- It’s long, wordy, and circuitous;
- There’s a lot of it.
Well, that’s your humble Curmudgeon. I’ve had that sort of writing style all my life, though I struggle against it when writing fiction. But I do eventually get to the point…when I have one. And in the majority of cases the thousand words or so before I get to the point have something approximating a relevance thereto.
That’s not how politicians speak. Politicians only get to the point when they’re absolutely certain they can advance one of the following aims:
- Getting your money;
- Getting your vote;
- Badmouthing a political adversary.
The best example of this practice that I recall from recent years was when Bret Baier interviewed Barack Obama on Fox News. Baier strove with herculean intensity to get Obama to answer the questions he asked. He even interrupted The Won several times – shock! horror! – in a vain attempt to force Obama to get to the point. But Obama resisted to the very last, never, ever providing a clear answer to any of Baier’s questions. It was a perfect demonstration of PolSpeak as practiced at the very highest levels of politics.
One of the things that endeared Donald Trump to millions of Americans is that he eschewed politicians’ sort of blather. He answered questions. He made definite statements. He said openly and unimpeachably that he had done or would do specific things. Some of the things he promised to do, such as the wall on the southern border, never came off, but no one could claim he hadn’t promised them.
And so, I found the following, which I stole from Irish, both highly educational and exceptionally funny:
Pass it around. Note the reactions of your victims. And try it yourself! Who knows? If you have the gift for it, you might have a career in politics.
