I wanna hold you in parenthesis

by Ted on October 29, 2004

Most liberal blog readers have heard about Tom DeLay’s ludicrous accusation against the Daily Kos blog (also quoted here, here, and here):

“LaRouche is a con felon and all I can tell you is that Mr. Morrison has supported and campaigned with LaRouche followers and Mr. Morrison also has taken money and is working with the Daily Kos, which is an organization that raises money for fighters against the U.S. in Iraq,” said DeLay.

Needless to say, the Daily Kos does not raise money for insurgents or terrorists in Iraq or elsewhere. Unless the House Majority leader would be pleased to describe himself and other House Republicans as “fighters against the U.S. in Bosnia”, this is an absurd charge.

I happened to go back to the original story just now, where I saw…

“LaRouche is a convicted felon and all I can tell you is that Mr. Morrison has supported and campaigned with LaRouche followers and Mr. Morrison also has taken money and is working with the Daily Kos, which is an organization that raises money for fighters of U.S. (policy) in Iraq,” said DeLay. (emphasis added)

How’d that happen?

I don’t know what Tom DeLay said. If he was misquoted, correcting the quote online is good journalism. It would be nice to include a little correction at the bottom of the page, but no big deal. (I should say that I don’t believe that this is what happened. I personally called the campaign office to ask about this quote. I specifically asked if DeLay was misquoted, and the gentleman from the campaign told me that DeLay’s statement was accurate.)

I don’t know what Tom DeLay meant. Maybe he misspoke, or just realized he was over his head. In that case, an additional sentence, something like “Mr. DeLay explained that he was referring to candidates who opposed U.S. policy in Iraq”, would not be out of place. (This I could believe; that’s the explanation I was given. When I asked whether it was appropriate to characterize Democratic political candidates as “fighters against the U.S. in Iraq”, he said, “I’m not going to have an argument with you.”)

What I do know is that human beings can’t speak in parenthesis. It seems implausible that the words inside the quotation marks are the words that came out of Tom DeLay’s mouth. If the quote was amended, would The Citizen extend the same courtesy to less powerful figures who come to regret what they say?

{ 5 comments }

1

rea 10.29.04 at 10:34 pm

“I’m (not) guilty,” confessed the defendant.

2

kathryn from sunnyvale 10.29.04 at 11:08 pm

When you write that Delay was quoted accurately, then this (“raises money for fighters against the U.S. in Iraq”) is the accurate statement? Thus the parenthetical comments were the reporter’s (until now forgotten) telepathy-thought-tape-recorder’s version?

I just haven’t seen the use of “()’s” for these sorts of comments. Usually a reporter or editor would use “[]’s” for their [sic]’s and [additional information]’s, no?

The reporter’s email address is likely to be first initial lastname @ hcnonline.com, based on Houston Community newspapers “about us” webpage (http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=2400669&BRD=1574&PAG=461&dept_id=542121&rfi=6)

3

KCinDC 10.30.04 at 12:56 am

Using () for interpolations in quotes is perfectly normal in newspapers, presumably because in earlier decades the more generally used [] were not part of the newspaper character set. This interpolation, however, seems more than a bit fishy.

4

Liz 10.30.04 at 2:37 pm

If Dr. Evil can use air quotes, why can’t DeLay use air parens?

5

Robin Green 10.30.04 at 11:34 pm

raises money for fighters of U.S. (policy) in Iraq,

How pathetic is that “clarification”?

It’s disgraceful that the Republicans will now stoop to painting mainstream organisations as funders of terrorists.

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