Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/22/configurable-politics.html
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seemingly purposefully misstated (ahem)
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That’s been one of my main complaints: about a month after he was sworn in, the media began to treat him and his spokespeople as if they were legitimate, grown up adult human beings with points of view that were important and salient and to be taken seriously.
The harshest criticism from the non-pundit based news media – I guess we still call it the “news” – takes the form of a surprised, quizzical tone about the President’s just amazingly outrageous and aberrant outbursts, behavior, and decision making. But most of the time they read the news without such affectations. They have in effect normalized this purple haze of misinformation and insanity.
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Can any English guru help me understand why “lied Korea” feels like it’s missing a “that”, but “falsely claimed Korea” feels fine?
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I can kind of understand their reticence - we can’t usually definitively say when he’s lying and when he’s just completely delusional. But with Trump, the two merge blend together within his profound rejection of reality. So “lie” is just as appropriate as anything else, really. I suppose the alternative is to talk about him like the delusional crazy person he is, but they’re really not going to go that far.
I think it’s because standard usage is that one claims (something) but one lies about (something) or lies that (something is the case). They’re not fully equivalent, at least in usage.
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I expect at some point the “fact check of the day” section will just start reading “none found.”
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You have to install another browser extension to fix this browser extension’s grammar issues.
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Should we start a countdown pool for when the NYT has to issue its first correction for someone pasting text into a NYT article with this extension installed, ala the “cloud->butt extension”-type goofs?
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The great curse of the left is wasting our energy excoriating our allies for not agreeing with us quite loudly enough.
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The NYT spiked the release of the audio from Stephen Miller’s interview – even just the full transcript – at the White House’s request, despite the fact that the entire thing was on the record. They lament the fact that Democrats are using potty words in response to Trump stealing people’s babies. Their opinion pages are loaded with faux-intellectual conservatives and climate change deniers.
They deserve some excoriation.
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One who doesn’t feel compelled to know whether or not they are telling the truth is more dangerous and morally-unsound than a mere liar.
Yet, we seem to have no appropriately disparaging word for this.
“…fabricated that Korea was the longest war”? No…
I think I vote for “…hallucinated that Korea was the longest war”
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If he could read, I’m sure that septic dog hemorrhoid would be pleased by this endless discussion of how to talk about him, because that, and nothing else, is what he wants. If the NYT and other media could avoid mentioning him at all, that would take the wind out of his sails and avoid the problem of how to describe the white noise that comes out of his face.
If any of this stuff deserved to be news, no one would be that concerned about the language, because they’d be caring about the substance. With Turmp, there is none – it’s like watching pigeons fucking, or a McDonald’s wrapper blowing around an empty playground. The NYT is confused because it’s trying to report on him as though he were comparable to Lincoln or FDR, simply because he’s nested in the wall cavity of the office they once occupied.
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The Dutch-Scilly War (1651-1986) is the longest even strangest, wars in our world’s history, characterized by a complete absence of battles and bloodshed, is known as the Three Hundred and Thirty-Five Years’ war.
He was probably referring to the Korean war as the longest war in American history. There is an armistice, more or less a permanent truce with North Korea, but the 1950-53 conflict was conducted under the aegis of the United Nations and was dubbed a “police action” by President Harry Truman. Congress never actually declared war, nor did it authorize a military engagement.
It’s not technically a war and not the longest war in human history but maybe the longest ongoing unresolved conflict America has been involved in militarily.
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This is worthwhile for a critique of the NYT editorial slant:
And lest we forget how they behaved last time…
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The only problem is that this doesn’t do anything about the problem of the NYT. If you are installing it, you already know that they’re seriously problematic. Otherwise, you’ll never see anything other than NYT propaganda, and if you don’t know that’s what it is, like the majority of Americans don’t, then you’re vulnerable.
The majority of mainstream media has a rightward spin… the value of Fox News isn’t in that, or it’s willingness to repeat the heaviest of the RW talking points verbatim, it’s the fact that it lets those RWers spin CNN and MSNBC, WaPo and the NYT as “leftist” because obviously they’re not Fox. Fox News is the flashy misdirection to make the others more palatable.
Consume with care.
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I would like the NYT and all media to become sqeamish about calling trump by name. Just do not use his name, instead only refer to him as the President or shitgibbon or cheeto in charge…you get the drift.
Let’s make this a thing, think of what it would do to him!
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Or invent a new word to replace both. Such as ‘mendationed’.
I’ll get my coat.
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… which is of course the class war
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Well done! I was laughing so hard at this, my 9-year-old asked “what’s wrong?”
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