CAN WE HAVE BETTER LIARS PLEASE? THIS IS EMBARASSING

That sounds funny given that ‘diplomacy and unequivocal’ are hardly in the same register, unless you can be certain you are unsure, and you are determined to be flexible, and you are vociferous about being quiet, and positively supporting not being negative, and very clear about your ambiguity. It only proves how the englsh language has ingenius ways of saying yes when you mean absolutely no. Yeah, Yeah, sure.

What does it all mean, this unequivocal commitment to diplomacy? It means you sincerely draft a bogus resolution for the UN that echoes the same resolution that you have vetoed three times already and exuding the odor of virtue, present it to the Security Council. When China and Russia call you out and veto it as a farce, you sincerely condemn them as being obstacles to peace, and you say it with a straight face- not as part of a SNL skit. Our UN Ambassador should be nominated for the Oscar as best supporting actress in a Dark Comedy.

I mean, we are unequivocally committed to diplomacy while at the same time, we unequivocally pay for the war to continue. We offer equivocal humanitarian aid while we unequivocally applaud the killing fields that we, of course, sincerely regret, unequivocally. We are concerned. We are disturbed. We think like Lady GaGa at the superbowl, its a little over the top. We will unequivocally equivocate.

When a policy is so ludicrous, so contradictory and when the weasel words tumble out of the mouth of our leaders and they show no embarassment, you know how sincere they are about their inauthenticity and how transparent they are about their duplicity and how rationally they can explain away their insanity. They show unequivocal contempt for the english language. Whatever you think about the war, language used like this turns communication into mush. We may as well use smoke signals.

George Orwell warned us in “Politics and the English language”, and Oscar Wilde spoke about the ‘Decay of Lying.’ We are even losing the art of decent deception. Lying used to be a game you had to master, by at least paying tribute to the truth you were trashing. Our statesmen and woman are rank amateurs. They think we are all idiots. And Folks, perhaps we are, if we don’t call them out. And Folks, I say that sincerely and unequivocally though I may sound a tad ambivalent, but at least I am being diplomatic. Diplomacy is the best cover for cowardice.