The politics of meaning
Posted by Marc Hodak on April 8, 2008 under Politics | 
2 Comments to Read
Politics is about finding meaning. That’s probably why I have such a difficult time with politics. For instance, I have no idea what this means (from an AP story about Hillary’s reaction to a McCain comment):
“I fundamentally disagree,” Clinton said, reading from prepared remarks that aides said she wrote.
Does this mean that Clinton disagreed? Or that she read her disagreement from prepared remarks? Or that she wrote those remarks herself? Or that aides said she wrote them?
I’m assuming there are actually editors working at the AP. If this is edited copy, one must assume there is something more to this statement beyond the nominal quote. Someone, please help me out, here.
sam said,
Are you asking why the article writer included the phrase “reading from prepared remarks that aides said she wrote.”?
After reading the article at the link, I would have to say that I haven’t a clue. Two possibilities are: highlighting that Mrs. Clinton’s remarks were her own creation rather than someone else’s that she was repeating, or, highlighting that she was not speaking extemporaneously, but needed to have notes to refer to. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine. Or better.
jd sinclair said,
It could imply Ms. Clinton is generally thought incapable of speaking from other than a prepared text, or that one might have reason to be skeptical that she wrote the text herself, so we need the testimony of her aides to be assured of such. Of course, the reporter could have gone one step further and remarked that the aides seemed sincere in this testament.