Reading Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler for the last year or so is having an effect on how I understand political pundits' commentary now. One of his favorite sayings is that if this press corps didn't exist, you couldn't invent them. I thought of that when I heard this from our Mr. Brooks, as in David "there are no neoconservatives" Brooks. He was commenting on Bush's State of the Union speech and the general topics under discussion in "the Beltway" (from the PBS Newshour 01/21/04):
Listen, I came from Iowa where something exciting happened, something unexplained, something new happened. Then I come back to Washington and they're still debating over whether the U.S. acted unilaterally in Iraq, over the PATRIOT Act, over the weapons of mass destruction. That's, you know, that's so six months ago. [Waves dismissively.]
"That's, you know, that's so six months ago." Yes, he really said it. War in Iraq, where American soldiers are dying daily and the political situation, shaky as it is, is coming apart; the civil liberties issues involved with the PATRIOT Act and whether it's been any use at all in fighting terrorism; the non-existent WMDs that have wrecked the Bush government's credibility with the world - all that is, like, you know, so-oo six months ago.
Somerby is right. If these people didn't exist, we couldn't invent them.
Atrios is pointing out that the weird phrase that Bush used in his speech - "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations" - is also to be found verbatim in an op-ed from Rep. Peter Hoekstra last October.
Now, I don't care if politicians steal phrases from each other. But shouldn't some reporters try to dig out just what that bizarre phrase means? Or is it that people are just so used to the fact that the whole WMD thing was a scam that no one figures it's worth the effort to ask?
Oh, how silly of me. That WMD thing is, like, you know, so six months ago!
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