[Welcome, Daily Dish readers.]
Another unanswered question:
Couric: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend 700 billion dollars helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas, and groceries, allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy rather than helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?As George Orwell points out in "Politics and the English Language," one need not take on the responsibility of thinking when composing sentences:
Palin: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation, this bailout is a part of that.
You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connexion between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.Look at what we have here — ready-made phrases, stray bits of language, as if pulled together from some desperate cramming for an exam: back on the right track, health care reform, job creation, one in five jobs, opportunity, reform that is needed, reducing taxes, reining in spending, shore up our economy, tax reductions, tax relief, the trade sector, the umbrella of job creation.
You know no one's home when we're told that "reducing taxes . . . has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief."
Stop, look, and listen: Katie Couric interviews Sarah Palin (YouTube)
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"Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word."