Stop being absurd…
Apparently, this is no April fools joke:
BLACKBURN, England (CNN) — One day after Condoleezza Rice said the United States made possibly “thousands” of tactical mistakes in the war against Iraq, the secretary of state says she was speaking “figuratively, not literally.”
…
On Saturday, a reporter asked Rice to give examples of the mistakes.
“First of all, I meant it figuratively, not literally. Let me be very clear about that. I wasn’t sitting around counting,” she replied. “The point I was making to the questioner…is that, of course, if you’ve ever made decisions, you’ve undoubtedly made mistakes.
“The important thing is to get the big strategic decisions right, and that I am confident that the decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people an opportunity for peace and for democracy is the right decision.”
“The other point I was making to the questioner is that I’m enough of a historian to know that things that looked brilliant at the moment turn out in historical perspective to be mistakes, and the things that look like mistakes turn out to have been right decisions.”
Obviously Rice was dealing in hyperbole. No one is stupid enough to think she’s been counting. But there certainly is nothing wrong with asking her for a few examples.
Rather than admit to even one little mistake, she treats the reporter like an idiot. And while the reporter is certainly not a stand-in for the public, Rice treats the masses as asses with her remark.
She’s used this same combination of hyperbole and innumeracy before. Remember the 75 percent of top al Qaeda leadership caught or killed in Afghanistan? A percent demands numerical precisian because you can’t have 75 percent of something without first having a definite something. But she didn’t have a definite something, which was made painfully apparent with the next question the reporter asked.
Rice pulls a little academic shenanigans today, too. I agree that what counts as a mistake or a success will be partly determined by history. I’ve made the same claim about my own discipline. For example, the “read my lips” line by George H. W. Bush was an effective bit of rhetoric when first uttered, but it turned out to be a political disaster over time. But Rice’s contention amounts to an over generalization. Surely this administration has made a mistake or two in Iraq. Stop being absurd, and just name one.
If for some reason I stop being absurd I just want you to know it’s because I wanted to stop being absurd and not because you told me to.
Zach– Perhaps we can discuss it at the next Springfield Bloggers meeting
re: name one
What is your assessment of the mistakes named by Wolfowitz, Feith, Garner, Bremer, and others?
What is your assessment of the resulting civic discourse?
Sys- My post is confined to Rice’s recent performance. Others have certainly pointed out mistakes, as your links demonstrate.
Re: the resulting civic discourse. Give me a specific problem to address.
I didn’t have a specific example in mind, but I’ll try to come up with one.
My interest was in journalism’s role in civic discourse and transactionalism: “learning from” and admitting mistakes.
Specifically how news journalism treats admissions and news analysis explores those admissions.
It’s a good point. I don’t mean to defend this administration, which I think has taken mendacity and self-delusion to a new level, but if Rice had discussed specific mistakes, that would have been the major story of the day and would overshadow any other statements she made. It seems to me this “gotcha” attitude discourages candor from public officials. Why would you admit a mistake when the admission itself will be used to hang you?
Sys and Marc– Marc is correct. Rice shouldn’t have said anything about mistakes in the first place considering what’s likely to happen. But once she did, it was fair to ask her for examples. Now, can we trust journalism as it is currently practiced to explore any admission in a productive way. Well, we can’t (that’s not to say it can’t happen). But the MSM isn’t the only consideration or the only voice in civic affairs.
So we have a odd sort of circular situation here: Politicians who shouldn’t speak and journalists who shouldn’t speak as they normally do.
Hmmmmmm…
A healthy civic discourse would allow the politician to speak freely and be followed by a cogent exploration of meaning within a proper civic/journalistic kairos. Now, we just have to define what that is