![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() Just Above Sunset Archives January 4, 2004 Examples of Forceful Writing: Candidates for the Purple Prose Award
|
![]() |
||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|||||
![]() |
![]() |
||||
![]() |
![]() |
||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Over at Princeton University one of the fellows in the Computer Sciences Department takes a stab at political analysis. He writes a lengthy analysis of current US foreign policy, and it is a good read. But the prose style is most "unscholarly" so to speak.
"Our foreign policy is fueled by overt paranoia and an imperious sense of omnipotence." Really?
"Its shrill, threatening
rhetoric, relentlessly echoed by a gang of media goons, has coarsened public discourse and alienated friends and allies."
Maybe so. Ah, the ease with which George W. Bush attracts superlatives! Helen
Thomas calls him "the worst president ever." A kinder, gentler Jonathan Chait ranks him "among the worst presidents
in US history." No such restraint from Paul Berman, who brands him "the worst president the US has ever had."
Nobel Laureate George Akerlof rates his government as the "worst ever." Even Bushie du jour, Christopher Hitchens,
calls the man "unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily
uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things." Only Fidel Castro, it would appear, has had kind words
for our 43rd President. "Hopefully, he is not as stupid as he seems, nor as Mafia-like as his predecessors were." He goes in this manner
for many pages. You may not agree with him, but he does build up a head of steam.
In view of the fact that Saddam most probably would not have achieved or maintained
power in the first place without our aid, considering that we supported him in countless ways while knowing a great deal about
his vicious and brutal tactics, and in light of the fact that we stood by while thousands of Iraqis were killed after we ourselves
had encouraged them to rise up against the evil of Saddam's rule, the Iraqis owe us precisely nothing. To the
contrary - and try to get this simple moral truth through your incredibly thick and intentionally self-blinded skull - we
owe them. Indeed, we owe them so much that it can never be repaid - and once again, we appear to be failing miserably
in our attempts to right our past wrongs. We are failing because, yet again, we have refused to learn anything from
the past, and we are therefore repeating all the same mistakes over and over and over again. Wow. This fellow
doesn't like ambiguity. And was that last comment a challenge to Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly?
Let the fun begin.
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
|
![]() |
||||
![]() |
||||
![]() |
||||