It’s been obvious for a long time that politicians – i.e., persons who aspire to high elective office – must master a way of speaking that evades all possibility of actually saying anything, especially when the facts are against the politician at issue. It’s integral to the politician’s central skill: taking credit for good developments and sloughing the odium for bad ones. Good examples of this esoteric art may be found here and here.
The most blatant examples of PolSpeak arise when a politician faces a direct question whose truthful answer would damn him. Those who desire to study this art form can find innumerable examples in the public statements of that master of “running out the clock,” Barack Hussein Obama.
But until today, it hadn’t occurred to me that managers in the executive bureaucracy must find PolSpeak a useful art as well:
The U.S. Secret Service and FBI on Thursday responded to a video recorded by James Copenhaver, one of the victims wounded in a July 13 assassination attempt against former President Trump, showing a figure moving across the roof of the building gunman Thomas Crooks shot from.
The video that Copenhaver shared exclusively with Fox News Digital was taken at 6:08 p.m. on July 13, minutes before Crooks fired at least eight gunshots at 6:11 before counter snipers killed him.
“The Secret Service is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again,” the agency told Fox News in a statement. “That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations.”
Take a good long look at that “reply” by the Secret Service. Of course, it doesn’t come from the SS as a whole, but rather from some skilled PolSpeaker put in his position for his facility with that argot. It says precisely nothing of substance. It’s a pious statement of “intentions,” some of which no official in the SS actually holds. It evades all responsibility, on anyone’s part, for the very nearly successful attempt to kill Donald Trump.
Is any Gentle Reader feeling an urge to find the PolSpeaker who composed that “reply” and put him in restraints and a shock collar? You know, to see if we can get him to admit to anything resembling a fact? At the very least, we should try to teach him to speak English as the rest of us do, don’t you think? His mode of speech would be a serious handicap in any productive or responsible trade.
