Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Wiederaenders: "New set of demons plague local veteran"

A veteran has a son in Germany who might go to Iraq. He's crying into his hankie and condemning the Preznit and the Speaker for not agreeing about how to handle the awful mess we're in there. In parting he says, "The fighting has to stop."

I have a nephew in Texas who's about to leave for his second tour in Iraq. I'm not crying into my hankie, I'm standing up with the 75% of Americans who agree that the Preznit must back down and get our troops out of harm's way. The fighting has to stop.

This, I think, represents a remarkable consensus. It's a pity Tim would apparently rather interpret it as conflict. Or is that what he really means? Does he really mean to say anything at all? Hard to say.

There's a cookie available for pointing out the typo in the headline.

6 comments:

leftturnclyde said...

man he put words that in that vietnam vets mouth. I swear this whole thing aint about money. the bill that the president is set to veto has the funds required alocated. His ( and the rest of the never been shot at chicken hawk crowd on the hill)problem with
it the time table for pulling out .

Steven Ayres said...

There's no point speculating on that, because unless he recorded the interview, it's practically impossible to know what else Tim heard from his subject -- including for Tim, because our listening tends to be selective. We hear what we're looking to hear, and it buries the unexpected or contradictory in noise. The real skill in understanding someone else is listening without expectations. Did Tim do that well? Hard to say.

Anonymous said...

... guess it should be "plagues", eh?
cookie please.

Steven Ayres said...

MJ wins the cookie for verb agreement, although I think the more elegent edit would be "New demons plague local veteran."

Anonymous said...

typo alert! "elegant", my man ...

Steven Ayres said...

Touche, mj!