Cognitive Dissonance

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"Bush might have said, “We will stay on the offense, and though terrorists may attack our people and our allies’ people, because they have no respect for human life, we shall prevail,” or words to that effect. Such an affirmation might have been as close to the Churchillian mold as Bush gets, and would have committed no falsehood. But no: On June 28, Bush chose instead an affirmation that had already been falsified (in Madrid) and was almost immediately falsified again, and then repeated it, denying evident fact.

What shall we make of such statements? I can only think that they are meant both to obscure reality and to evoke the sort of sympathetic grunt that affirms, “You know what he means,” when what he means is to depart from meaning altogether. What he means is: It is what it is, I am who I am, fuck you."