"large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin"

[muriel_volestrangler]

An excellent analysis of some of the language of the SOTU speech from Stephen Poole's "Unspeak" blog - which is always entertaining and thoughtful about weasel words and political euphemisms. He's picked up on one sentence I haven't seen mentioned here yet:

So we’re deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq.

“Reinforcements” - of course! It’s brilliant. Emotionally, “reinforcements” easily trumps the now-obsolete controversy over “escalation” vs “surge” (and wasn’t one big problem with the word “surge”, by the way, the fact that it is already contained in the word “insurgents”?). “Reinforcements” focuses on the alleged needs of the soldiers, both US and Iraqi, already in Iraq: they are, so we suppose, radioing for backup in the face of an enemy onslaught, so who could deny them the help they need? “Reinforcements” is the cavalry coming over the hill, the thrilling turning point in a battle scene from a western or a second-world-war epic. It is Gandalf arriving with the dawn at Helm’s Deep. Frank Luntz, with your “reassessments” and “realignments”, eat your heart out. “Reinforcements” is where it’s at.

Mr Bush also announced:

We enter the year 2007 with large endeavors underway, and others that are ours to begin.

Other “large endeavours” that are “ours to begin”? Does that sound like a threat to you? Does its insistence on the choice being “ours” to start when “we” decide remind you of Bush’s threat to attack “at a time of our choosing” just before the invasion of Iraq? By coincidence, Bush also called for a doubling in size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and made five mentions of the iniquity of Iran.

http://unspeak.net/reinforcements/

[tanyev]

1. So many successes that haven't occurred yet!

Wheeeeee!

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

2. His speech had several not so veiled threats. "I've spoken to many of you personally..."

was one that set off my alarms, because it was accompanied by a "meaningful" look. I can only imagine the timbre of some of those conversations. MKJ

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. 2 aircraft carrier task forces are large endevours, aiming at Iran.

Although he has lied 90% of the time in previous SOTUs, he does always let out a gem.

Remember his, "I'm a uniter, not a divider?" He was right, the country and the world are united against him.

His plans for Iran were also hidden, but mentioned in passing.

[treestar]

4. All his endeavors are belong to us

Chimpy is such a moran.