A new administration trend:"Let's just leave it at that". It's good to watch Laura Bush picking up on the Secretary of State's example of how to close the door on a line of questioning that's making you uncomfortable: tell 'em that gum-flappin' time is over!
But note also the skill with which Mrs. B. gets in something very like the opinion she denies having: "It's a very, very shocking issue to some parts of the American people." (Some parts of the people, indeed!) The double very leads into the mismatched pair of "shocking" and "issue," intensifying it, and leaving the sentence translatable, if one likes, as "People are being shocked by the debate over this subject." But of course, to the extent that gay marriage is an issue -- the subject of public debate -- people are not so much shocked as they are of strong opinion about it, one way or the other.
In this context, almost anyone ought to recognize "shocked" as a standard term of conservative cultural outrage, invoked to convey the outrageousness of equal rights for homosexuals. Like her "watching with concern" husband, the First Lady has got to signal her disapproval without overtly claiming it as her own: her garbled wording pretty clearly covers something more like "very, very shocking idea" -- in other words, an expression of active distaste for the notion, for which the administration would rather not have to take full responsibility.
Oh, and bonus points for her pinpointing of the proper standard by which questions about GWB's national guard service should be evaluated: "And, you know, he knows that he showed up the whole time." If you can't shut their mouths, you can always leave their jaws dropped in wonder.
You know, he knows that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
You know, he knows he didn't know anything about the terrorist attacks before they happened.
Actually, once you get the hang of it, it's easy.
Let's just leave it at that.
Posted by: Scott on February 19, 2004 03:35 PMIs this just a misstep (which would be embarassing, since she said she's very careful about what she says)?
"I think it ought to be everything, but I also think that abstinence should definitely be talked about."
In this case, "everything" appears to refer to contraception/birth control issues. If that's so, then her view contradicts her husband's, because their push is for abstinence-ONLY education, not "everything, but heavy on the abstinence" education. There is a very clear distinction, the primary one being that abstinence-only education has been a documented failure. My former colleagues at VCU can tell you about how useless state A-O programs were in Virginia at reducing teen pregnancy.
Go get her, Helen Thomas!
Posted by: torridjoe on February 19, 2004 05:51 PMThat one's hard to parse as anything other than a misstep: you'd think that staying on message to the right would mean plugging abstinence alone, and then stopping short of mentioning the possibility of any other kind of sex or birth control education. If pressed, repeat that what concerns you is that among all the information teens are given in school, how 'bout a little more abstinence? How could that hurt anyone (wounded look)?
You avoid alienating non-hardline voters in this scenario by avoiding the language about abstinence only education, but because you never mention the other kinds, your social-conservative base never hears you uttering what sounds like softness w/r/t their demented insistence that teens can be instructed out of their hormones and that birth control, like jury nullification, should only be available to those who stumble upon its existence through an inspired guess ("Say, Mrs. Prunsler, in the event that a person did, like, have sex, there wouldn't by any chance be a product which would reduce the transmission of disease, or prevent pregnancy? I mean, has anybody ever thought of, like, inventing something like that?")
In short, you're right -- it sounds like Laura might have let her practical experience as the mother of some not-exactly-retiring twins interfere with the appropriate censoring devices necessary for holding onto one's credential with the "family values" set. I mean, what are the odds that Jenna and Barbara weren't let in on the existence of "everything" as a matter of course?
Posted by: BT on February 19, 2004 10:18 PM