"A confusion of tongues" = speaking different languages; talking past each other and not understanding what the other is saying.
John McCain almost had one of his infamous angry meltdowns in an exchange with a newsman who was questioning his adamant filibuster of the bill that would have eliminated DADT. McCain contended that the military does not actively pry into people's private lives to ferret out gays and lesbians. The newsman kept trying to confront him with examples of just that, especially the case of former Air Force Major Mike Almy, who with 13 years of exemplary service was discharged on no other evidence than emails to his partner obtained by his superiors from active prying into his emails. They didn't even pretend to offer any other evidence.
McCain kept insisting that the military doesn't do such things, and that if anybody has such evidence they should contact him. Major Almy is said to be "dumbfounded" at such assertions from Senator McCain, who chaired the hearings when he, Maj. Almy, testified just 6 months ago to that effect.
But here's where the confusion of tongues comes in -- and in this case it is probably a willful confusion, or obfuscation, on Senator McCain's part.
Read his words carefully: he just kept repeating: "it is not the policy," "the military does not have such a policy." Maj. Almy keeps saying: "But it happened to me." And McCain says: "There is no such policy."
Neither Maj. Almy or the news media reporting on it seems to get it. They're trying to resolve those two positions. They can coexist. It's not the policy, but it happens. That's the truth.
Now the real question is: if it is not the policy, how did they allow that as the only evidence in whatever proceeding led to Major Almy's discharge? That isn't right.
Meanwhile, senators played politics as usual yesterday and successfully filibustered the DADT-laden defense bill. That's a shame.
Ralph
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McCain is being McCain - trying to hold mutually exclusive positions and denying that there's any conflict between them. He did it with torture. It's just what he does. Now he's doing it with da/dt. When he's confronted about the impossibility, he gets angry and belligerent.
ReplyDeleteSome people are like that, ignoring that they have a split between two sides of their mind, and disintegrating when confronted. It's almost like if you too close to the borderline, they fall apart.
Yesterday, he was a nut-case both in the Senate and afterwards. The thing that got me was that the Republicans didn't even talk about the question on the table [da/dt]. All they did was accuse the Democrats of being sneaky. Like "Susan Collins ... says the way Democrats are trying to repeal it is 'unfair.'"
I think we ought to put all the Senators in a tent and let them fight to the death. Then let the survivors run the Congress [I think Franken can take them out].
Amen about Franken. Maybe we should turn the government over to Al Franken and Jon Stewart.
ReplyDeleteI think there is something to what I wrote.
ReplyDeleteComedians get paid for exposing the truth.
Politicians think they can only get elected by obscuring the truth.
It's so refreshing when we come across politicians who tell the truth -- but can they keep winning if they do? It's rare. You have an avid following but you also offend another potential following, so they wind up compromising and obscuring and trying to please enough people to get re-elected.
It's a sad commentary on our system, which requires so much money to be raised that truth gets left way behind.