N. Korea Makes a Face

Quote:   “[The nuclear test was] an expression of our intention to face the United States across the negotiating table.”  Unnamed North Korean official, quoted by the Chinese Yonyap news agency.

Figure of Speech:  argumentum ad baculum, the fallacy of argument by the stick.

Logicians tie themselves in knots over the technical punctilios of rational speech.  Rhetoric, on the other hand, lets you get away with almost any fallacy — provided you get away with it.   Figaro loves rhetoric’s refreshing lack of rules.  It forgives your logical sins.  It says to humanity, Don’t ever change, you’re beautiful.

But there are fallacies even rhetoric bans, and argument by the stick is one of them.  Deliberative argument, the rhetoric of decisions and choices, requires the ability to make choices.  When we point a gun to your head as an express of our intention to face you across the negotiating table, we’re not persuading, we’re threatening.  This is why Figaro is skeptical of foreign diplomats’ call for “dialogue.”  Sure, negotiate.  But negotiate the way you would with a blackmailer.  Talk softly and carry your own stick.

Actually, if we were the Chinese (and aren’t they lucky we’re not), we would be quietly working on a regime change.  The Dear Leader is their problem child.

Snappy Answer:  “You got to work on your expressions, dude.”

Bush Gets All Medieval on Their Donkey

Quote:  “The Democrats are the party of cut and run.”  President Bush, at a Republican fundraiser.

Figure of Speech:  metallage (meh-TALL-uh-gee), the getting all medieval figure.  From the Greek, meaning “making a swap.”

According to Republican labelers, Democrats seem to have undergone a policy change.   They used to be the party of tax and spend.  Now it’s cut and run.  In what goes for political debate today, if you chew a label and spit it at your opponent often enough, it’ll stick.

In rhetorical terms, the tax and spend and cut and run labels constitute a cool figure.  The metallage takes parts of speech that aren’t nouns — such as verbs or adjectives — and uses them as the object of a sentence.  You can see a great instance of the figure in the film Pulp Fiction, where Samuel Jackson threatens “to get all medieval on your ass.”

Bush gets all medieval on the Republicans by turning the verbs “cut” and “run” into an object.  Instead of the wimpy, “The Democrats are the party of timidity,” Bush’s metallage inserts a little film highlight depicting his opponents hightailing it out of Iraq.

Snappy Answer:  “The Republicans are the party of spend and run.”

Congress Ex-Foleyates

Quote:  “Foley, meanwhile, appeared to be trying to McGreevey himself out of his predicament.”  Today’s Papers column in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  anthimeria (an-thih-MER-ia), the verbing figure.  From the Greek, meaning “part swap.”

Forget North Korea’s nukes, Iraq’s chaos, and the Dow’s record high.  The media devotes its biggest coverage to instant messaging — that is, the disgusting and possibly illegal IM’s that Congressman Mark Foley sent to teenaged Congressional pages.

Following standard operating procedure for a politician caught in a sex scandal, Foley went into rehab for alcoholism and “behavioral problems,” and announced that he was himself a victim.  (He said through his lawyer that a clergyman abused him when he was a teenager.)  The confessional M.O. follows that of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, who resigned after admitting to a gay affair with the state’s director of homeland security.

The Washington press can’t resist an eponym — a word named after a person.  When the name gets verbed, the result is an anthimeria, a figure that converts a noun to a verb or vice versa.  Figaro has already verbed a member of Congress — a man who never met a lobbyist he didn’t like and who hopes the Foley scandal will make him Speaker of the House.

Shakespeare used the anthimeria to form “bet,” “drugged,” “negotiate,” “puking,” “secure,” “torture,” and “undress,” among many others.  You’d think he was describing a member of Congress.

Snappy Answer:  He’s not done McGreeveying until he gets a book deal.

We Will Not Discuss Flatulence

Quote:  “My lord, we had quite forgot the fart.”  Queen Elizabeth I.

Figure of Speech:  apophasis (a-PA-pha-sis), the not-to-mention figure.  From the Greek, meaning “denial.”

The story goes that Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, farted in front of the Virgin Queen.  Mortified, he went into exile for seven years (and, according to another legend, wrote plays attributed to Shakespeare).

When the earl finally returned, the queen greeted him with an apophasis — an ironic figure that asserts a point by denying it.  We at Figures Central have encountered many examples, but none so deft as Elizabeth’s.  Historians say the story is probably apocryphal, but  Figaro prefers to follow the wisdom of Winston Churchill:  “It is all true,” he said of King Arthur, “or it ought to be.”

Still, we have nothing to say about our current president’s love of fart jokes; nor about his ancestors, who apparently passed royal genes as well as gas.  

No, none of that.  When it comes to farting, Figaro chooses to remain silent.

Snappy Answer:  “Your majesty’s odor is far more memorable.”

Take My War. Please.

Quote:  “If we have a military strategy, I can’t identify it.  I don’t know what’s worse — that they have one and won’t tell us or that they don’t have one.” Stephen Hadley, then deputy national security advisor, in an excerpt from Bob Woodward’s new book.

Figure of Speech: dilemma, the figure of unsavory choice.  From the Greek, meaning “double point.”

Early in the war — back when Condi Rice was the national security advisor, and before Stephen Hadley moved up to take her place — the two met with their top Iraq official, who had just returned from Baghdad.  The man was bothered by the sparse number of American troops.  According to a new Woodward exposé, Hadley responded with a dilemma.

This figure of thought often appears in good-news bad-news jokes.  (Doc:  “The good news is, you have 24 hours to live.  The bad news is that I forgot to call you yesterday.”)

Want more black humor?  Get the painstakingly reported Fiasco: The Military Adventure in Iraq.  Only that reads more like a bad-news bad-news joke.

Snappy Answer:  “The good news is, you can torture it out of them.”

Congress Discovers Constitutional Fine Print

Quote:  “The Constitution says we will provide for the common defense, not provide for the criminal defense.”  Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech: fallacy of composition. Also antithesis (an-TIH-the-sis), the figure of opposition.  From the Greek, meaning “opposing ideas.”

Congress is rushing through a bill that allows the president to detain American citizens as long as he wants, without charge, and without letting them see the evidence against them.  The bill’s sponsors are already accusing opponents of coddling terrorists.  Representative Gohmert puts the case in a neat antithesis, thus proving that some white people really do have rhythm.

His logic, however, can’t dance.  The Constitution does indeed provide for the common defense, but it also provides for defense of the innocent.  The federal government itself has concluded that most of the detainees at Guantanamo are not terrorists at all; many were sold to the Americans for the bounty.

Of course, some of the detainees are truly evil.  But by assuming that these bad apples define the whole bunch, the congressman commits the fallacy of composition:  because a few members of a group have these qualities, the fallacy falsely assumes that everyone in the group shares those qualities.  In other words, if you’re captured, you must be guilty.

This makes a suspicious-looking character like Figaro very nervous.

Snappy Answer:  “Where does the Constitution say the president decides who’s a criminal?”