To Some Extent
It's fun — indeed, one of my favorite pasttimes — to hear what new catch phrase politicians will come up with next. The phrases don't always catch on, but they keep trying; it seems there's a sort of verbal Darwinism at work.
A notable example of unfortunately longevity was Nixon's "point in time", which finally seems to have withered out of common usage. The Bush League's own amusing malapropisms, "step up to the ball" and my recent favorite, "at the whim of a hat", seemed not to have gained a foothold, alas.
Many of these are reasonably innocuous, but not all, particularly when misdirection and obfuscation are the goal. I'm a little troubled by the sudden popularity of "to the extent that…" — I seem to be hearing / reading all the Bush League first string suddenly using "to the extent that".
It seems that the phrase premiered with the President's own use in his now famous taking of "full responsibility" for the Katrina aftermath: "And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility." Clearly not quite as all-encompassing as Truman's iconic "The Buck Stops Here", but I suppose the President doesn't plan to have the phrase engraved on a little desk plaque either. I amuse myself trying to imagine Truman with a more modern version: "To the extent that the dollar is still worth a full ninty-nine cents, it stops right here, to the extent that it needs stopping."
The phrase was almost with us when, at the recent height of kerfuffle over the role of Rove in the Plame-Name-Game (don't you think the cute little Katrina phrase "the blame game" disappeared rather quickly? Do you suppose the administration has plans to market the board game?), the President had to "clarify" his original intentions in saying that anyone involved in leaking Valerie Plame's name would no longer be a part of his administration to saying that they would no longer be a part of his administration if they did something illegal, which you have to admit is tantamount to saying "to the extent", so I guess we could see it starting right then and there at that point in time!
Now I see that Don Rumsfeld, another great one for taking full responsibility (remember when he took "full responsibility" for the events at Abu Graib, and it turned out that taking "full responsibility" meant saying "I take full responsiblity" but then nothing else happened, in contrast to the way that it often does for normal, non-governmental, middle-class people who are responsible for things), is talking about responsibility, at least "to the extent":
…this is what Donald Rumsfeld said when asked about the torture: "All I know is that the Army is taking it seriously. To the extent somebody's done something that they shouldn't have done, they'll be punished for it."*
One wonders, naturally, exactly how one measures the extent to which somebody's done something, so that the punishment can be proportioned to the same extent.
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*Richard Bradley, "Rumsfeld: What, Me Worry?", The Huffington Post, 28 September 2005.
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Such Language!
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on Thursday, 29 September 2005 at 12.40
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To the extent that we can be pro-active, so that we can more better do our jobs, I recall a Doonesbury from years back:
Press conference; military spokesman mixing metaphors badly "we've been down that road before, and it's a minefield".
Reporter questions him — "Will the commission be looking for any new metaphors?"
"No. I won't have these hearings turned into a witch-hunt for silver linings."
on Friday, 30 September 2005 at 12.21
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This whole language-twisting really, REALLY annoys me (I'm a linguist). It's not only duplicitous and dishonest, but (more importantly) it demands constant vigilance on the part of the listener. The GOP uses language to hide and distort, never to clarify or explain. You always have to be on the lookout for what they really mean (usually the opposite of what their saying), wading through tons of bullshit. I saw a press conference the other day on Katrina (McClellan used "blame game" about a million times) and it is mindblowing to me how someone can actually say nothing substantial in over 40 minutes. I would really, REALLY like some journalist to do their f-ing job and call them on their bullshit!
on Wednesday, 5 October 2005 at 10.57
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[…] re yesterday. And we'll be more prepared tomorrow than we are today." Now this I can easily translate as Bush League speak for To the extent that we're prepared, we're ready. […]