Hold Still. This Is Good for You.

Quote:  “Surgical strikes?  Nothing is surgical about military operations.   They tend to have impacts, effects.”   A “senior counterterrorism official” in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  horismus, the clear definition.  From the Greek, meaning “definition.”

A classified report compiled by all 16 federal intelligence agencies and leaked to the press asserts that the war in Iraq is making us less safe from terrorism — not more safe, as the president contends.  The anonymous Post source explains the reason with a horismus, a pithy definition that explains the distinction between terms.

Definition is one of the most powerful persuasive tools.  Get your audience to believe your interpretation of the terms, and you have won half the rhetorical battle.  Today’s quotation is a perfect example.  If operations in Iraq are “surgical,” then it’s possible to kill the bad guys and bring freedom to the Middle East.  But if you define military operations as messy, with unintended political affects, then killing the enemy will only create more enemies.

The White House will undoubtedly take the news seriously.  Having failed to find Bin Laden, Bush’s men will begin a zealous hunt for the report’s leaker.

Snappy Answer:  “So they’re cruel and bloody and create resentment throughout the population? That makes them more like an election.”

Why Mommy Can't Win Elections

Quote:  “Democrats make sure we share all our toys, just like Mommy does.”  From the children’s book, Why Mommy Is a Democrat, by Jeremy Zilber.

Figure of Speech: diatyposis (di-a-ty-PO-sis), the figure of wise advice.  From the Greek, meaning “system.”

When Figaro first saw this book, he thought the Republicans had put out a clumsy parody.  Would Democrats really publish a book depicting themselves as squirrels??

Yes, actually, they would. 

The book repeats the same ungrammatical phrase, “just like Mommy does,” in a diatyposis — an especially annoying figure that teaches values in the form of sage advice.  (Shakespeare mocks the diatyposis in the character of Hamlet’s Polonius.)

Having managed to turn off a majority of Americans, the Dems are now driving their own children into the greedy little arms of the GOP.  Any self-respecting three-year-old will want to hide her new Dancing Elmo and send her allowance to Rush Limbaugh.

We can’t wait for the Republicans to put out their own version, showing patriotic little gun owners happily shooting squirrels.

Snappy Answer:  “Now, Republicans steal toys.  And they run off with women half their age and they’re always late with child support, the lazy, two-timing … Why, honey, why are you crying?”

Academia Goes to DefCon 3

Quote:  “I talk to lots of presidents who would love to disarm, but they’re afraid to do it unilaterally.”  Colin Diver, president of Reed College, in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  auxesis (aux-EE-sis), the exaggerated label.  From the Greek, meaning “increase.”

Run for cover! America’s elite colleges are in an “arms race,” according to President Diver.  And what are their weapons? Nukes? Gas? Double secret probation?

No, the weapon of academic destruction is merit aid — money given to top students regardless of need.  It’s an arms race only in the sense that no college wants to stand down first, for fear of lowering their standing in U.S. News & World Report.  Diver is guilty of an auxesis, a form of hyperbole that applies a mountainous label to a molehill of an issue or thing.

While Monty Python used it to great effect, the auxesis is one of the most insidious figures.  Left-wingers and Donald Rumsfeld refer to their political enemies as “fascists.”  Politicians call criminal suspects “predators.”  When this exaggerated labeling becomes prevalent, freedom-loving citizens get turned into traitors and suspects get stripped of their human rights (because they’re not human, that’s why!).

Snappy Answer:  President Diver, step away from that figure!

Onward, Christian Soldier!

Quote:  “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Emperor Manuel II.

Figure of Speech:  syncrisis (SYN-crih-sis), the show- me- this- and- I’ll- show- you- that figure.  From the Greek, “comparison with.”

Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14^th-century Byzantine emperor in a scholarly lecture at Germany’s University of Regensburg last week.  The pope says he wants to improve dialogue; in the same spirit, the mullahs might have a few remarks to make about the Inquisition.

But the quotation itself shows what great figurists those Byzantine types were.  The syncrisis places the opponent’s argument next to a contrasting clause of similar length:  Show me anything new Muhammad brought, and I’ll show you evil and inhumanity.  It’s an efficient way to redefine an issue.

Predictably, some Muslims expressed dismay that the quotation about Islam’s alleged violence might lead to … more violence.  (Indeed, it apparently has.)  Yesterday, Pope Benedict issued a classic non-apology, saying he was “deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address.”  Translation:  “I regret that a few morons made a stink about something they took out of context.”

The pope may not have the old emperor’s rhetorical chops, but he sure knows his way around a circumlocution.

Snappy Answer:  “Spoken like a true Crusader.”

Bush Tells Logic to Make His Day

Quote:  “If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic.”  President Bush

Figure of Speech:  Straw Man, a fallacy of distraction.

The president wants Congress to give American interrogators official permission to … not torture, exactly, but make suspected bad guys feel a whole lot of pain.  Colin Powell, the once invincible general and former secretary of state, protests that the White House bill would cause the world “to doubt the moral basis” of the fight against terror and “put our own troops at risk.”

That’s “flawed logic,” Bush retorts, using his own flawed logic.  His weapon of rational destruction is the Straw Man, a false argument that’s easier to rebut.

Ignoring Powell’s assertion that torture compromises us and threatens our troops, Bush answers a different one:  our interrogation methods make us as bad as the terrorists.  Powell never made that comparison, but it’s a neat Straw Man that Bush can beat up.

The president can tell you a thing or two about flawed logic.  Whenever rational thought gets in his way, he locks it up and tortures it.

Snappy Answer:  “What a great slogan: We’re Not As Bad as the Terrorists.”

We Are What We Watch

Quote:  “It’s the Netflix version of the divided soul:  The end of your list is the person you want to be — Eraserhead, the eight-hour BBC Bleak House, the complete Werner Herzog — while the top is the person you actually are: Wedding Crashers, Scary Movie 4, The Bridges of Madison County.”
Sam Anderson in Slate.

Figure of Speech:  synecdoche (sin-EC-do-kee), the part-whole swap.  From the Greek, meaning “swap.”

Netflix lets you invite friends to see your queue — the list of DVDs you want the service to send you in the mail.  Writer Sam Anderson has a funny piece in Slate about how much that queue can reveal.  He makes a collection of movies stand for a person’s soul:  a perfect synecdoche.

The figure is one of the most important of all, because it uses our brains’ predilection for shortcuts.  Our senses detect a white mansion in Washington, D.C., or a bunch of trees, and our noggins transform these limited data into presidencies or forests.  Similarly, the synecdoche lets the Star Wars Trilogy and the first season of Gray’s Anatomy define an entire personality.

Which means that the medium is no longer just the message; it’s also sender and recipient.  You know those thrillers about robots taking over the world?  It’s happened already.  We have seen the robots, and they are us.

Snappy Answer:  Did you spot that Amelie in the black dress?  Turns out she’s just a Legally Blonde.