Christie proffered his reply with all his usual articulate-sounding, self-righteous, "just doing my job" rhetoric that we've come to expect. He creates an effect of a sincere, dedicated, determined -- and not to be pushed around -- public servant. Confident, saddened that "this has happened," and "determined to get to the bottom of it."
But what he slips by with, blurred by all that rhetoric, is his careful choice of words. In what sounded like an absolute refutation of Wildstein's claim, that he knew about it while it was going on, what Christie actually said was:
"I had no knowledge, did not participate in the planning of it. I was unaware of it . . . "before it happened."Two or three times he repeated phrases such as "before it happened" or "in the beginning," but never Wildstein's "while it was going on."
Then later in the interview, he talked about the news reports about the traffic backup during the time. He said that there is always a problem about traffic; and, if he heard about that at the time, he wouldn't have paid attention to it. He repeated that, if he heard news reports about traffic backups, "I wouldn't have paid any attention to it, because traffic "doesn't rise to the gubernatorial level" of concerns.
As a former prosecutor, Christie is highly skilled in close reading of testimony or transcripts. This is unlikely to be sloppy use of language; it is much more likely to be slippery use of language to deny one thing while giving the impression of denying something else.
Even the seemingly astute interviewer, and even the ever-sharp-to-details Laurence O'Donnell, reporting it later, did not seem to catch the difference.
What difference it will make in the long run remains to be seen. At this point in time, Christie is playing for public opinion, keeping his options open, and trying not to paint himself into a corner without wiggle room. He probably thinks he got away with this one -- denying y to give the impression he is denying x.
Not really
Ralph
No comments:
Post a Comment