In my Saturday column, I quoted Biden’s line to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, about how he would feel if Trump were sworn in as president because he refused to step aside: “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
Now, “goodest” isn’t a word. But my researcher, Andrew Trunsky, and I listened to the video, our ears up against the computer, 10 times, and that’s what it sounded like....
After my column posted Saturday morning, T.J. Ducklo, a Biden campaign spokesman, emailed me to “flag” that ABC News had updated its transcript to read: “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
As if "the good as job" is good English. It would seem to be a mangling of "as good a job." But I guess "goodest" seemed like devolution into childishness, so random mangling was distinctly preferable and worth going to war over.
Ducklo asked if I could “tweak” the column and change the word “goodest” to make my piece “consistent with the corrected transcript,” even though the revised version was also gobbledygook.
Don't do it! You listened carefully and heard what you heard. They are foisting their preference on you, based on their wishful listening. The transcript has no authority over the recording. It's something machines and humans made from a recording, and YOU are the ultimate transcriber.
When I said we would tell our editor what he thought, Ducklo wrote back: “Yeah again, it’s not what I think. It’s what ABC News, who conducted the interview, thinks. I think it would be quite unusual if the Times asserted the president said something that the news organization who conducted the interview says he didn’t say …”
ABC News didn't do anything more than YOU did, and we have to suspect that the Biden campaign leaned on them too, and now they're taking ABC's capitulation and trying to use it as evidence that YOU heard wrong.
Andrew and I both emailed Ducklo, asking whether ABC had changed the transcript on its own or if the Biden team had asked them to change it.
Good!
“ABC News, like any news organization, makes their own independent editorial decisions,” Ducklo replied to us. “Surely you are not suggesting otherwise.”
That's a bullshit answering of a question other than the question asked, which was whether Biden team had asked them to change it. If the Biden team asked them, they'd still go on to make their own independent editorial decision about whether to do what they were asked. I see a confession between the lines of Ducklo's slimy email.
He emailed again to add: “Had another convo on this. ABC News received the tape and confirmed the error to us. Then made the correction.”
Yeah, but did the Biden team lean on them to do that? I say yes. By the way, why is there talk of "the tape"? Was there any "tape" involved? Everyone had the digital recording.
I was more confused than ever. What tape? From whom?? Why the runaround???
Exactly.
Given the White House’s egregious coverup about Biden’s sag from aging, the spokesman’s coyness seemed de trop.
Good sentence. Why write "de trop" instead of "too much"? Because it's Frenchy, like coyness. And there's poetry in clustering the "g"s of "egregious," "sag," and "aging."
By Saturday night, Shear and Michael Grynbaum had a Times story clearing up things. Indeed, the White House had asked ABC News to check...
AHA!
... whether the president said “goodest” or “good as,” after the White House stenographers, who had recorded the president on ABC News, noticed the discrepancy between their recording and the network’s transcript.
The Times attached notes on my column and all the news stories that had used “goodest,” explaining the befuddlement....
"The befuddlement" is ambiguously — intentionally or not. Biden was befuddled, not Dowd, and Dowd blurs the difference, knowing we can figure it out.
Here's the note the Times appended to Dowd's Saturday column:Times Opinion revised Mr. Biden’s quote in this column about how he would feel if he loses the election after White House officials and several news organizations contacted ABC on Friday about whether Mr. Biden had said “goodest” or “good as.” ABC’s standards team listened again to the audio and made the change. Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.
The new column has this near the end:
It might seem like much ado about goodest. But it’s a harbinger of tense times between a White House in bunker mode and a press corps in ferret mode.
Is "ferret mode" a term of art or is Dowd just likening the press to weasels? Both the White House and the press corps are digging in the ground — the White House is fighting a war and the press is doing... whatever it is that weasels do... hunt animals that have gone underground?
Reading the Wikipedia article "Ferrets," I ran across this:
A male ferret is called a hob; a female ferret is a jill. A spayed female is a sprite, a neutered male is a gib, and a vasectomised male is known as a hoblet. Ferrets under one year old are known as kits. A group of ferrets is known as a "business," or historically as a "busyness"...
Lots of potential for name calling in ferret mode — a female ferret is a jill....
After more research: "Ferret mode" might be something in video games (like this, which I can't believe I need to know to read NYT columns). And it might be something in ethnography.
Anyway, whatever "ferret mode" means and whoever is more befuddled in goodestgate, this miniature squabble demonstrates to fair-minded readers why we need the separation of journalism and politics.
Posts
82 comments:
too bad, professor, that you don't work at the NYT. if you did i might start reading (and believing) it again.
I'm all in for Joe "Grandpa Dawdertucher" Biden. He had me at trunalimunumaprzure!
Definitely not the first time this has happened. Sure would like to hear more about this. When did it start? How many calls did it take to acquiesce?
Don't worry. Jemele Hill thinks Bidens problem is that the media is pro Trump. Don't disagree or she will call you a RACIST.
Jemele Hill
@jemelehill
Biden’s issue isn’t that he can’t convey his accomplishments. There are just so many conservative echo chambers (ex: Fox News, Newsmax, OAN) that run Republican/Trump messaging 24 hours a day. There is no Democratic Party equivalent of that (and no it is MSNBC).
And as far as VP Harris goes, she would have the same issue as Biden. They have one of the most accomplished administrations in history, but again you wouldn’t know that by media coverage.
And now understand this is how the mainstream news media and pundit class help Democrats all the time on every other news story. The only thing that is different here is that there is a schism within the Democrat Party that has put the media and the White House on different sides of an important issue- it is only now that you get to see, out in the open, how it operates.
Had Dowd wrote the essay Saturday with the exact same information about Biden saying "goodest" but there was neither effort within the party to take him off the ticket nor were Dowd also wanting the same thing, Dowd would have quietly changed her essay at Ducklo's request without telling anyone why.
All of these NYT words about a single word. Just shows how little pushback the NYT has received from the administration about other issues.
For all that, Dowd is still pushing the journalistic party line: Doddergate is the White House's coverup. The press corps are still the Good Germans, who had no idea about the camps and are simply shocked to find out.
"And now understand this is how the mainstream news media and pundit class help Democrats all the time on every other news story."
Someone on Gab did some accounting on the value of the in-kind contribution the MSM has given Democrats since Reagan took office...came to something like $6 trillion in adjusted dollars. And not a bit of it on any quarterly contribution report for 44 years.
Someone call the fucking FEC. Oh right...they're in on it too.
The Ministry of Truth tells you what you heard, wasn't what you heard. You apologize and feel guilty, and double down on others who heard it wrong too.
Unless the official party line is to highlight the 'mistake', because the former god like candidate is no longer the parties choice.
Orwell and Stalin would be so proud of American media.
Anyone who has been watching Biden press conferences instead of heroically waiting for the transcripts, ANN, would have known this was coming. And really, what did the Rats think would happen? That Biden would magically become less demented?
And the worst part for the Rats is, Jemele Hill and MSNBC can easily spin coverage of "goodest" into "NYT steals Trump talking points." You're going to see a meltdown within all of the media to the left of Sean Hannity, to the extent it hasn't already started.
There is a schism but the media is still covering for them at the same time. We’re not hearing any outfit demanding to know who’s making the decisions, or manipulating Biden to make particular decisions. We need the onion thoroughly peeled.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed reading this post. It was fascinating. But...
I'm sure the White House is very happy to focus endlessly on arguments over the tiny, ambiguous details of something Biden may or may not have said, and the media is happy to write about them in a way that makes them appear to be intrepid journalists digging into a story.
What's lost in all this minutia is the clear and obvious fact that a senile, old man has his finger on the button.
I think Dowd fell into a trap from the Biden White House. By making a big deal over the transcription of .“goodest” vs “good as”, She allows the White House to now claim reporters are trying to create an issue from facts that don’t support it
Most of the MSM - probably damn near all of them - will be named for Project 2025 along with their 'deep state' sources who've helped perpetrate this farce, and with evidence of their pre-meditated duplicity.
These people will be "on the list" for their mouths writing checks their bodies can't cash. Bout damn time.
Given the White House’s egregious coverup about Biden’s sag from aging
Well, they did a p***-poor job of it, as anyone -- with, apparently, the exception of so-called journalists -- could see it without much effort. . . . . .
"There is a schism but the media is still covering for them at the same time. We’re not hearing any outfit demanding to know who’s making the decisions, or manipulating Biden to make particular decisions. We need the onion thoroughly peeled."
They are attempting the immaculate abortion.
"Is the president’s mental state strong enough to beat Donald Trump and can he serve for four more years?"
Ms. Dowd should have asked the bolded part without the question that preceded it.
Worth repeating and ‘bolded’: And now understand this is how the mainstream news media and pundit class help Democrats all the time on every other news story. The only thing that is different here is that there is a schism within the Democrat Party that has put the media and the White House on different sides of an important issue- it is only now that you get to see, out in the open, how it operates…Had Dowd wrote the essay Saturday with the exact same information about Biden saying "goodest" but there was neither effort within the party to take him off the ticket nor were Dowd also wanting the same thing, Dowd would have quietly changed her essay at Ducklo's request without telling anyone why.
…and this is how it has been done for a long time, back in the time when something couldn’t be true because NYT and WaPo weren’t reporting it…farther back when media bias against conservatives was all silliness made up in conservatives heads.
So the betrayals are starting now - the defections won't be long to follow. The Administration is getting desperate to maintain their authority; we see black females, normally automatic Diversity Heroes, being fired for disclosing that, yes, they received their 'questions' from the White House in advance of their broadcast. A second one has made the declaration today, apparently. Soon everyone will be ready to jump ship, more eager for future opportunities than their present arrangement, which appears increasingly unstable. Soon the publishers will get into the act, sending instructions down to the editors for tone-setting.
I think it's going to become a very messing election. Both France and the UK have shown the strategy of scorched-earth, doomed politicking. 'Win at any cost, but win' - even if it means continuation of the deeply unpopular policies, even if it means almost certain political suicide at the next election. The next election is in the future - we're here, now; we'll have the voter problems fixed, by then.
Bob Boyd said...
What's lost in all this minutia is the clear and obvious fact that a senile, old man has his finger on the button.
7/8/24, 9:59 AM
I doubt that absolutely anyone has permitted Joe Biden to have the actual launch codes for some time. But what President Trump should do is bring in every single officer, from Captain on up, who has talked to Joe Biden. If they cannot produce written notes to a superior documenting Biden's obvious incapacity taken before July 2024, that should be grounds to cashier any and all of them.
Miranda Devine reports that Hunter Biden has been sitting in on Joe Biden’s meetings with senior staff in the west wing of the White House.
Morning Joe is ON IT!!!
Morning Mika looks orgasmic in the videos. Joe is going to get LUCKY tonight!!!
https://twitchy.com/dougp/2024/07/08/biden-called-msnbcs-morning-joe-show-n2398116
Is this the most substantial Dowd article ever?
Bunker/ferret is a poorly mixed metaphor. Ferrets hunt small game in burrows, not bunkers. If you want to force someone from a bunker, you use explosives or flamethrowers.
Goodliness is next to godliness?
I talked to some liberal friends yesterday about the presidential race. They are wishing that Biden and Trump would drop out. When I said the economy was way better under Trump, specifically that inflation and interest rates were much lower, I was informed that:
a) How the economy is doing has nothing to do with the President
b) The economy isn't that bad, anyone who wants to get a job can (I refrained from pointing out that was true if you wanted a part-time job with no benefits)
c) Things aren't nearly as bad as during the 70s
As for c, I pointed out that would probably not be a winning slogan.
Maybe you don't know the expression "to ferret (something) out", meaning: to dig for as yet undiscovered information?
As for a, I pointed out that even if that was true they're still f***ed. People are going into the voting booth thinking about if they are better off now than before. Stuff that used to be called bread and butter or kitchen table issues.
This morning I saw a list of Biden's accomplishments put out by his campaign. He's rebuilding the economy and creating more jobs than any prez in history. (Yeah, pull the other one, its got bells.) The one that really stood out is expanding NATO. Unless you work in the beltway, almost nobody in the US cares about that.
Anyway, the point of all this is that my liberal friends are still sure that Trump is crazy/stupid/demented. But they are starting to worry that he is going to win.
I have sympathy for the Biden staffer who tried to get that one word or phrase corrected. He or she would have to know that it couldn't possibly matter, that there is no way to clean up the interview to make it coherent. But you have to try and earn the paycheck. You do what you can to try and make your boss look good, even when it's a hopeless task. We've all been there.
Anyway, whatever "ferret mode" means
Ferret (verb): search tenaciously for and find something.
"she had the ability to ferret out the facts"
goodest job
correct usage is:
Good.........
More Better..
Most Best....
Bestest......
there Is No 'goodest'
We tend to have our tv sound loud because my husband is a tad hard of hearing. My daughter was watching with us and as soon as Biden said what we all heard as "goodest", our collective eyebrows went up. My daughter is an ESL teacher and her ears are well attuned to listening for mispronunciations or incorrect word choices. There is no doubt in our minds that he said "goodest".
I forget who wrote the article I was reading earlier this morning, but the leftist argument concerning the liberal pundits and journalists not reporting Biden's decline is to claim that he was just fine previously, but started a precipitous decline since January or so that they just didn't notice until the debate. Oh, and all those cheap fakes? They were deceitfully edited.
I saw "ferret mode" and from the contest immediately thought "investigate", "dig more deeply", "Double check"
As in "I was up all night trying to ferret out what Brandon actually said"
Though ferrets as a bunch of weasels attacking Brandon works too. And ferret in this context may lack the dishonest connotation that weaselly carries.
As in "Even for an LLM (insert name here) sure is a weasel"
John Henry
The White House staff needs to let Joe be Joe. Despite the unrelenting attacks of generations of English teachers and dictionary writers, goodest is a word, it just doesn’t mean best. From the guy who campaigned in 2020 on the principle that he was no better than anyone else, it is the correct word choice.
The press constantly trying to rescue Biden reminds me of Laurel and Hardy, "another fine mess you've gotten us into......"
If Maureen really, really, really wants to cement her claim to journalistic "credibility," she should campaign for public release of the Hur recording ("tapes"?) to verify that the transcript is an accurate transcription of Biden's, y'know, actual words.
If she thinks that "good as" may be inaccurately transcribed as "goodest" (or vice versa), then she should be doubly concerned about a transcript that the WH adamantly refuses to make publicly available.... No?
Be goodest.
"too bad, professor, that you don't work at the NYT. if you did i might start reading (and believing) it again."
I'm exactly where I belong. I need to keep my distance. If I were on the inside, I'd be extremely uncomfortable and quite different from what the blog allows me to do naturally. I am very lucky that blogging came along, because this and this only is the format for me.
Biden’s aides didn’t coverup his dementia.
Media like the NYT did.
Fuck Dowd.
Thanks but I do know the verb meaning of "to ferret" (and its relationship to the animal).
My question was whether "ferret mode" is a term of art.
George V Higgins was famous as a law prof, ADA and G Gordon Liddy's lawyer. Also for being dead
But I know and love him mostly for his novels.
In one of them "Bomber's Law" he describes a time honored custom among Boston's Irish-American community. Apparently a lot of Irish keep ferrets as pets and for hunting and sport. They also have a game called "Ferret Legging". Two quys will each put a ferret down their pants and the one who hangs on longest wins.
I thought this was something Higgins made up as a plot device but I figured I'd check before posting. It seems to have been a thing amongst youkshire coal miners and even has a Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferret-legging
Following a brief resurgence in popularity during the 1970s, it has been described as a "dying sport",[4] although a national ferret-legging event was held in Richmond, Virginia, US from 2003 to 2009.
Maybe we should practice this with presstitutes. Starve some ferrets for a week or two, drop one in MoDo's panties and tell her it stays until she decides to be honest. The ferret will probably starve to death first but worth a try.
John Henry
TJ Ducklo again ;-D
FROM WIKI
*In January 15, 2021, it was announced that Ducklo would serve as a White House deputy press secretary in the Biden Administration.[9]
In February 2021, People reported that Ducklo was in a romantic relationship with Alexi McCammond, who covered the Biden campaign and administration for NBC and MSNBC as a contributor and as a reporter for Axios in 2019 and 2020. As a result, McCammond was reassigned to covering Vice President Kamala Harris and progressive lawmakers in Congress.[10]
After the profile was released, Vanity Fair reported that Ducklo threatened Politico reporter Tara Palmeri, telling her he would "destroy her" if she published a story about his relationship with McCammond. He had also reportedly made "derogatory and misogynistic comments" toward Palmeri during a phone call and accused her of being "jealous" of his relationship with McCammond.[11] On February 12, Ducklo was suspended without pay for one week and apologized.[12] He resigned from his White House position the next day.[13]*
ON greeting the new WH STAFF, Biden had said;
--BBC News (World)
@BBCWorld
·
"[If] I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise I will fire you on the spot"
Speaking to White House staff, President Joe Biden says dignity has been "missing" these past four years
Ducklo, of course never really strayed far from working for Democrats and officially rejoined the WHITE HOUSE with the beginning of current campaign.
BTW, I heard 'goodest" as well but didn't care.
I doubt that absolutely anyone has permitted Joe Biden to have the actual launch codes for some time.
Probably right...hopefully. But that's not okay.
And that is what journalists should be digging into, isn't it? If the guy who is supposed to be in charge of the nukes isn't, then who is? And why? And what kind of shape is that guy's mind in?
If Joe is working part time now, as he himself has indicated, who's picking up the other shifts? Anybody we know?
Digging into each syllable of something Biden said last week doesn't answer these important questions. It actually provides cover for Biden, because most people are probably thinking, "Who cares if he said goodest or good as."
I would take “ferret” in the common sense of “ferret out the truth” even if creates a bit of tension in the fact that the press should always be ferreting out the truth. Generally yes, ferreting out the truth is their basic job function, but at this moment, they are trying to salvage their reputation by ferreting out Biden’s dementia with particular gusto.
“...I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Gabby Biden for clearly stating what needed to be said. I'm particularly glad that these lovely news people were here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic Biden gibberish, it expressed a courage little seen in this day and age.
On “ferret mode” as a term of art, my wife used to be a journalist and I’ve never heard her say it.
I think “we’re in [X] mode” is a common enough phrase that Dowd’s use need not suggest more.
Oh, he definitely said "goodest."
But more importantly, I suggest again that everyone watch (not just read the transcript of) the moment about 2 minutes in where's he's asked if he listened to his own debate performance.
Long pause... Forlorn and confused look... Mumbled "I don't think so, no."
He doesn't remember.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ferret%20out
The "bunker" analogies are here! I called it!
For clarity: I think Kamala Harris routinely produces "word salads". You might call her "word salad Kammy".
On the other hand, Joe Biden often takes it to another level, producing a "letter salad" of gibberish and odd sounds. My recent favorite letter salad occurred during the Trump/Biden debate when Biden had a verbal melt down ending with him squeaking out the phrase "We finally beat Medicare."
Searching define "ferret mode" (with quotes) in Duck Duck Go (Google is not our friend) I got a number of hits. Some were to the news story but a lot more were to some programming functions in GNU EMACS. I do not understand what they mean but apparently it is a term of art in UNIX programming.
https://gist.github.com/j08lue/5458122
John Henry
Just a reminder that the White House was provided the "opportunity" to review the Hur transcript and make "revisions" - which we are assured did not alter any spoken words. The examples provided were ellipses (long pauses), "ahhhh", "hmmmmm". Or, so we were told.
I wonder if "goodest" was changed to "as good as" and the DOJ let them get away with it.
That's why the GOP is trying to make them release the audio - and why No. 1 Political Hack Garland.
Long pause... Forlorn and confused look... Mumbled "I don't think so, no."
I saw that too, Jamie. I was also baffled by it. The most important, make or break, night of hiw career perhaps. Certainly of the last couple years, and he can't answer Yes, Yes I watched part of it or no?
A 90 minute video and he does not remember of he watched any of it?
Really?
John Henry
They might cheat enough to drag the turnip over the finish line, but if they do, he will rarely be seen after that.
They will shut him up in the White House and Obama or whoever will run the country until they need Kamala to 'make history' to try to get yet another 4 years.
We live in a fucked up country.
"If Maureen really, really, really wants to cement her claim to journalistic "credibility," she should campaign for public release of the Hur recording ("tapes"?) to verify that the transcript is an accurate transcription of Biden's, y'know, actual words.
If she thinks that "good as" may be inaccurately transcribed as "goodest" (or vice versa), then she should be doubly concerned about a transcript that the WH adamantly refuses to make publicly available.... No?"
Release the tapes.
And he clearly said 'Goodest.'
Biden is completely surrounded by people who tell him the media are wrong and he is an amazing candidate. Imagine being surrounded by people praising you 24/7.
That's the effect of having power. No one really tells you the truth.
Joe Biden is living inside a bubble.
Top Democrats need to take their case for Biden to drop out to Biden directly, en masse. Elected officials, party officials, and donors. When he finds he is in the minority in his own party he’ll drop out.
Ben Stiller in ferret mode
I have a rule of thumb. If what a speaker says in public on a microphone is still so slurry and unclear that there is a dispute about exactly what was said then the speaker is not good at communicating. If that same speaker also mixes up times, places, people and his role in events during the same short event, then that speaker has more issues than a communication problem. If that same speaker does all the above AND continually inserts known falsehoods into the stories he is telling unclearly, then everything they say can and should be dismissed as irrelevant.
POTUS should not be irrelevant. But Joe Biden has made himself the irrelevant one in every conversation in which I've witnessed him take part over the last three years. He's the classic unreliable narrator of his own life story and you want him to represent us in foreign engagements? In waging wars? WTF!
the lies
the coverup
the shit that will not go away
I love that movie
See andrew marrs head of state a british 'weekend at bernie'
Blogger Rich said...
Top Democrats need to take their case for Biden to drop out to Biden directly, en masse. Elected officials, party officials, and donors. When he finds he is in the minority in his own party he’ll drop out.
I actually agree with all of your comment, Rich. Even the last sentence, though with a caveat.
Everyone assumes that Brandon doesn't want Donald Trump to win. I have doubts about whether that is true or not. I'm currently leaning about 60/40
He may have dementia or something similar. Or he may be faking it. See Vinnie the chin Gigante.
As to why, here is something that occurred to me recently. He is old. He knows he is going to meet his maker shortly, 5-10 years tops. He feels guilty about his life of grifting. He feels guilty about cheating in 2020 to win the presidency. Perhaps he is throwing the election to atone for his sins.
Or, perhaps he realizes that he can just barely handle the job now and won't be able to in a year. He realizes more than anyone what a disaster Kamala would be and he is throwign the election to keep her out of the whitehouse.
Or.....????
Yeah, I know, mindreading and I really shouldent. Sue me.
John Henry
“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the [unintelligible] job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
FIFY
This has been SOP for a while now, hasn't it? Biden makes a public statement and the next day "The White House" issues a "this is what he was supposed to say" correction. Of course, we're supposed to ascribe these manglings of the script to his "stutter" or "jet lag" from flights he took 2 weeks ago (in a plane with a built-in bedroom so he never has to miss his naptimes).
Talk about the weeds.
In “ferret mode” means weasel ways are actively being employed.
I worked with Brits for a good portion of my international career, and the use of the words 'ferret out', for 'digging into something to discover something', is a lot more common amongst them than it is, here.
The White House should not have interfered. Even though it's not a real word, "goodest" sounds better than "good" in that context. It's the incorrect word, but makes more logical sense. He obviously meant to say "best" but his mind grasped "good" by mistake.
Plus, there is no stigma against coining a new word, but there is against horribly misusing an existing word. And the White House brought unwanted attention to this issue.
In the theater we have a saying: "If you can't fake it, feature it."
Also, "goodest" was being considered to be added as a new word over a decade ago. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/submission/4105/Goodest
its a perfectly cromulent word,
doctrev said...
"I doubt that absolutely anyone has permitted Joe Biden to have the actual launch codes for some time."
The "launch codes" are in place for identity verification only. The military needs to make sure that any launches have actually been approved of by the President. The President can't just push a button and launch missiles. The military has to also agree to any launches and enable specific missiles for specific targets.
The problem with Biden's dementia is not that he will launch missiles when he shouldn't. It's that he might not be able to launch missiles when he needs to. (Especially if it's after 8 PM.)
Child vs linguist. Child is using ability to disassemble and reassemble cliches but doesn't credit exceptions.
C: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
L: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
C: Yes.
L: What did you say she did?
C: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
L: Did you say she held them tightly?
C: No, she holded them loosely.
_Mistakes_, Arnold M. Zwicky, p.25
With a name like TJ Ducklo he should be spinning disks at a music festival, but spinning the media is probably more fun.
Kassaar said...
Miranda Devine reports that Hunter Biden has been sitting in on Joe Biden’s meetings with senior staff in the west wing of the White House.
--
Smartest man Pedo Pete knows....
As if "the good as job" is good English. It would seem to be a mangling of "as good a job."
Maybe he said "good-ass job." (I don't think so, but that would be the only way to salvage it.)
As to why, here is something that occurred to me recently. He is old. He knows he is going to meet his maker shortly, 5-10 years tops. He feels guilty about his life of grifting. He feels guilty about cheating in 2020 to win the presidency. Perhaps he is throwing the election to atone for his sins.
There's nothing in the man's background that would make me give him this much benefit of the doubt.
For more than 50 years he's been the worst kind of politician, in the business for all the worst reasons, saying and doing whatever it took to cling to power.
Never has he earned a nickel that didn't ultimately come from taxes paid by the rest of us, from the days when he was a lifeguard having little kids fondle the hair on his legs, to the kickbacks on foreign aid that he took from corrupt Ukrainian politicians and oligarchs.
Wrong on every foreign policy question for the past five decades. Widely considered among the dumbest and most dishonest men on Capitol Hill since I was a schoolboy. The Senator from MBNA, remember that?
No one did more than him to make student loans non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Nobody did more than him to give millions of black men a felony record and prison time. Nobody did more than him to shit all over the Vietnamese boat people and keep them forever stateless in far-off refugee camps, out of concern that they would vote anti-Communist if allowed to immigrate. For him to now pose as a great friend of the blacks and irresponsible student loan borrowers and refugees takes gall that would shame Donald Trump himself.
Reagan used to be called (quite unfairly) an "amiable dunce." Joe Biden is a mean dunce, and a wicked, worthless man. His impending death will be a blessing to the nation, and I hope to be able to piss on his grave someday.
Is the president’s mental state strong enough to beat Donald Trump and can he serve for four more years?
It bears repeating ... you notice how it's never about what's good for the nation with these thugs? Nope.
It's about gaining and maintaining power.
Eventually, they'll rue this approach. I'd prefer sooner than later. But eventually they will.
Don't worry. Jemele Hill thinks Bidens problem is that the media is pro Trump. Don't disagree or she will call you a RACIST.
Jemele Hill is a stupid, racist bitch. Always has been.
Ignore her.
I figgered ferret mode was the opposite of beast mode.
"Beast mode refers to a state of performing something, especially difficult activities, with extreme power, skill, or determination."
But she used it in the sense that it was something admirable, so she probably didn't mean it the way I initially understood it.
“ABC News, like any news organization, makes their own independent editorial decisions,” Ducklo replied. “Surely you are not suggesting otherwise.”
I am suggesting otherwise, and don't call me Shirley.
If only he had used the word "bestest" everyone would have thought he was being trendy.
"Goodest" is something younger Millennial/older Gen Z dog people say. "He's the goodest boy", etc. when talking about the animals they treat like human babies. Wouldn't be shocked if Biden heard it from staff.
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