Dick Cavett Slams Bush: ‘It’s Only Language’

[kpete]

Dick Cavett Slams Bush: ‘It’s Only Language’
Posted by Pamela Leavey
February 6th, 2007 @ 5:45 pm

Dick Cavett is blogging at the NY Times and in what appears to be his first piece, he slammed Bush and the Bush Administration for their faulty use of the English language. I’ve always enjoyed Cavett’s wit… I LMAO reading this:

In these days of just about enough perils facing our nation, there is plenty of evidence around to conclude that our grip on our glorious language may be loosening. And the current administration, as in other matters, is not among the good guys. Let’s get everybody’s favorite example out of the way: the leader of the free world’s goofy inability to pronounce what is arguably the most important word in his vocabulary: “nuclear.” What is so hard? A school kid botching it Bush’s way — “nuke-you-lur” — would have to stand in the corner. Fortunately, an oval office has no corners.

(Does Bush’s atom have a nuke-you-luss? Does it work in reverse? Is Bush’s railway a foo-nick-lee-ur? Let’s bet.)

......................

Getting a little thing like words right, is it so important?

The right answer is: Yes. As when poorly worded road signs cause fatalities. Sloppy language leads to sloppy thought, and sloppy thought to sloppy legislation. And why not a sloppy war? What if someone big, issuing an order of earth-shaking potential, made the (tiny) error of confusing the last letters of Iraq and Iran?

Another whole category of language abuse is the stating of untruths which, when shown to be untrue, are repeated. As in Dick Cheney, the man who recently said to Wolf Blitzer, “We’ve had immense successes in Iraq,” adding “and we will have more immense successes.” Blitzer looked, well, blitzed. Instead of lowering a large butterfly net over his guest, he got his breath and, charitably, did not request examples. And what of Condoleezza Rice? The same Condi who was willing to contribute “a mushroom cloud” to the Scare America campaign now insists that an escalation be called an “augmentation.” What, in her new tea-time vocabulary, would she call the W.M.D. that caused the cloud? An “Instrument of Considerable Inconvenience”? What are the war dead in her sanitized lexicon? “The indisposed”? Or simply “those whose coffins may not be photographed.” Once dead, our brave soldiers are an embarrassment.

more at:
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=5251#more-5251

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Homerun.

It's so true. Sloopy language leads to sloppy thought. Running government isn't anything like Happy Hour. You have a much narrower window to get it right.

[badgerpup]

11. I was listening to George Carlin's "When will Jesus bring the pork chops?"

He addresses this, except he doesn't call it sloppy language...he was referring to all the euphimisms and the watering-down and sugar coating of the language.
E.g. "Shell shock" became "Battle fatigue" became "post-traumatic stress disorder" became something else...gist of it was "not ready for combat"...
and every watering-down made it harder and harder for the soldier to get the help necessary to deal with this condition..."Having seen and experienced things too horrific for your mind to have to deal with."

Last description mine.

:cry::grr::banghead:

[The Wizard]

15. And

and an IED is a fucking booby trap or a bomb.

[stellanoir]

2. If only we had such intellectual voices still on the corporate media

Alas.

k & R'ed

[Faygo Kid]

3. Cavett is a class act, and this is beautiful - especially ripping Condi

The whole lot of them should be in jail, but his analysis of Condi's use of language is exceptionally spot on. The professorial face of gentility of the Bush Administration is a killer, and her words betray her.

[rosesaylavee]

4. Oh KICK

I miss Cavett.

[maveric]

17. I thought he was dead.

Always liked him. Didnt he interview John Lennon some years back?

[rosesaylavee]

19. Nope. He's only 71 and still going strong.

Wish he would agree to bring back his late night talk show. He was very good at drawing out the most reticent of guests. I don't remember the Lennon interview but I would bet it was not only an intelligent and informative but entertaining as well. He was so good.

[motocicleta]

5. Cavett nails it.

It's like we're being led by a cadre of evil, bizarro world Pooh characters.

[tuvor]

6. He's been awfully quiet.

I thought I'd heard he'd met an early end years ago.

[rosesaylavee]

20. Only at ABC late night. The fools.

[babylonsister]

7. Great articles-thanks, kpete, and Pamela! nt

[BigBearJohn]

8. This guy is a f'kin genius. Wish we had more like him.

[kerrygoddess]

9. No kidding

I laughed so hard reading that.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

10. I watched Cavett's talk show when I was young and loved it.

There aren't any intelligent talk shows anymore, except for Charlie Rose which is late at night on PBS.

There used to be one or more intelligent talk shows on every week, just like the late night hosts (Johnny Carson) used to have different kinds of music acts on, instead of just the latest screaming and simple rock 'n' roll.

The first talk show I remember was Jack Paar. Early 60s.

[kskiska]

14. I watched Jack Paar every night - even as a kid

Instead of starlets hawking their lastest picture, Jack had authors like Alexander King and interesting people like arctic explorer Peter Freuchen and Africanist Jean Pierre-Hallet. Jack was on the cutting edge, interviewing Fidel Castro at the height of his revolution.

Jack was burned out after 5 years. His program was on for an hour and 45 minutes, five nights a week in the beginning, until the newspaper strike expanded the 11:00 news to a half hour.

David Susskind had another good talk show.

[ninkasi]

21. I'm showing my age

I remember when The Tonight Show had Steve Allen. This was before Jack Paar. I love Cavett, though, and am glad he's blogging. Oh, and for those of you old enough, one of the first shows I remember on T.V. was Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.

[PVnRT]

12. Oh, snap!

Bush got PWN3D by Dick Cavett.

[Blue State Blues]

13. "Instrument of Considerable Inconvenience"

Will that be one lump or two?

[Left Is Write]

16. Wow.

:thumbsup:

[BootinUp]

18. Thanks for posting this...n/t

[Bobbie Jo]

22. Which begs the question.....

"Is our children learning?" :spank:

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

23. He lost his wife of many years to cancer last July

He and Carrie Nye married in 1964.

When I was quite young, at the start of my career, I worked on a project that involved Mr. Cavett. He is one of the most gracious persons I have ever met, and I admire him both personally and professionally. I hope his posting marks a turn in the grief he has undoubtedly experienced over Ms. Nye's passing, so that we can all benefit from his sorely-needed wit and insight.

Thank you for the post and link.

[omega minimo]

24. here he nails it:

"Sloppy language leads to sloppy thought, and sloppy thought to sloppy legislation."