Comments on: Bush’s Paradox

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:30:22 +0000

By: alexc

alexc — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 02:09:56 +0000

Maybe there is some sort of Straussian flim-flammery going on, akin to ‘whether or not Jesus is god, I profess Jesus is God’

‘Whether or not the public reasons for war hold up, the private reasoning still stands’

In another instance: ‘Whether or not Delay is guilty, my legislative programme requires him to be innocent’

By: abb1

abb1 — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:06:58 +0000

So, Matt, it goes something like this: “whether or not a majority of people think it needed to happen, I’m still convinced it needed to happen”.

Yeah, this would be a decent statement. Too bad the fella couldn’t remember all the words.

By: Stephen Frug

Stephen Frug — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:06:39 +0000

I think that those interpreting this statement generously (by which I mean those making it make sense by e.g. reading “need” in two ways) are missing the emphasis, which should be on the second part (“I’m still convinced”) not the first part (“whether or not”). In a great many situations, Bush has shown himself to use faith-based reasoning: believing something is sufficient evidence that it’s true, or is sufficient that its truth is irrelevant (which it is varies, and can vary, since it’s not the point). Further, Bush clearly believes (and in this case with good reason, I fear) that this sort of logic is convincing to much of the country. This statement is a reassertion of faith: he is still a believer, and anything that his opponents bring up, facts or whatnot, is irrelevant to that. He is, as the Medium Lobster might put it, showing resolve—all that matters in this view.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:25:32 +0000

abb1: I still think that, as in my comment 14, it is possible to use “whether or not” to mean “let’s ignore this point, which I just expressed an opinion on.” But I admit that it is a little weird for Bush to have acted as though there might be some doubt as to whether he had a choice about starting the war. Perhaps it is part of a pattern of attributing weird beliefs to his critics: “My opponents think this was a war of choice, in the sense that I actually had to make a decision” is the flip side of “Those who oppose this particular war, which has occasionally been packaged as spreading freedom, must think that certain people are not ready for democracy.”

(That’s Rice, not Bush, but I was surprised to see that the White House site had even one hit for that exact phrase of straw. I know Bush has expressed the same sentiment, but don’t feel like looking for it right now).

By: CKR

CKR — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:48:16 +0000

A lot of time and thought on something that may or may not warrant it.

Bush prefers to use a very colloquial English for his speeches, and he’s not very good at thinking on his feet, or at least giving us the product of that thought in English.

This kind of confusion is the reason that presidents and others who must (not “need to”) make their meaning clear have used very prepared, very constructed scripts.

Bush presumably uses scripts, but his preference for what he thinks in the language of the common man and probably muddy thinking as well (by him? by his speechwriters?) lead to nonsense.

By: GP

GP — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:47:24 +0000

It’s the dawn of a new field: Results-Oriented False Logic, aka ROFL!

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 13:10:05 +0000

No paradox. Performative epistemics.

By: rea

rea — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 11:06:12 +0000

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

By: abb1

abb1 — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 08:13:58 +0000

So, Matt, you’re reducing the first clause to trivial “nobody held a gun to my head” and the whole thing becomes: “I felt then and still do that it needed to be done”. But the construct “whether or not” works against your theory; you don’t say: “whether or not I had to pick him up at the airport, it needed to be done”, you simply say: “I didn’t have to, but I felt I ought to”.

The “whether or not” seems to indicate that destiny might’ve played a role here. Explain the “whether or not”, please, since that’s what you’re here for.

By: goatchowder

goatchowder — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:52:18 +0000

It’s hypnosis. That kind of junko logic is right out of NLP, or Milton Erickson.

Listen to the inflection and tonality to hear the repetitive mantra too. “Whether or not IT NEEDED TO HAPPEN, IT NEEDED TO HAPPEN.” Command received: “It needed to happen”. Of course. Where do I sign?

Shrub is perhaps the best living hypnotist today—I think he’s even better than Bandler. His dad was pretty good too. Might even be a connection there: Bandler and Grinder supposedly did hypnosis training the CIA in the 70’s, and I have heard tons of Bandler-like patterns in Bush The First’s “scrambled” speech. Just a wild outside speculation.

Not to say that any of this is really new anyway. Salespeople, preachers, religious demagogues, and shamen have been using hypnosis for thousands of years. The advertising business is riddled with it. Shrub’s is just the modern political version of it.

Here’s a trick: if you hear a statement coming out of someone’s mouth, which makes no sense, and yet a significant number of people actually agree with it, chances are excellent that you have hypnosis happening there. If you find YOURSELF agreeing at first with nonsenese statements, and then have to kind of shake your whole body violently to snap out of it, you are most definitely experiencing hypnosis.

Just remember: if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit!

By: dearieme

dearieme — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:48:50 +0000

Whether ‘tis better to be inarticulate like Bush, or a fluent liar like Blair…

By: Jonathan Ichikawa

Jonathan Ichikawa — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:47:57 +0000

I think we can make sense of this one ok. “Even if I’m wrong, I still think that p.” Or: “The only way that not-p could be the case is if the evidence is very misleading; I’m still convinced of p.”

The more shocking and ridiculous line in there, I think, is this one:

Williams: Do you concede those three points might not have gone as planned?

President Bush: Review them with me again.

Williams: Number one — that we’d be welcomed as liberators?

President Bush: I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.

By: grackel

grackel — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:04:31 +0000

it seems to me Bush was using the kind of verbal shorthand all of us use conversationally. The first part of his statement, “Whether or not it needed to happen,” means that Bush is indicating an unknowable factual proposition; i.e we can’t know absolutely what the necessary course of action is, therefore I (Bush) have acted on my best sense of things—even though he places the second part of the statement in the passive voice—”I’m still convinced it needed to happen.” At least the man is consistent about these sorts of things. This is really a restatement of his oft repeated view that he is not going to second guess himself.

By: roger

roger — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:34:57 +0000

As I understand Gricean implicature, it starts with four maxims, one of which is the Maxim of Quality, which states that you do not state what you don’t believe to be true, or that for which you have no evidence that it is true. Bushian implicature is a triumph over this rule. The Maxim of Quality for Bushian implicature is the following: never give a sucker an even break.