The Personal is Political. The Political is Personal.

 
fun with code words

I have a secret code word that means "got nuthin' of import to say to the internets today."

I have been posting the code word religiously every day since May 28, 2005.

The code word is spelled like this:

In other code word news, I realized last week that the Veep has a code word phrase with a special secret meaning. The phrase is "if you will." He uses the phrase a couple times in almost every interview he gives.

Read the interview bits below and see if you can figure out the secret meaning of Mr. Cheney's code word phrase:

from 1/29/02: "They have been screened, prescreened, if you will, in Afghanistan and those that end up in Guantanamo we have reason to believe are, in fact, very dangerous fellows."


from 9/8/02: "what we’ve seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest, if you will, if I can put it in those terms, is that [Saddam Hussein] now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs."

from 9/9/02: "We know that [Saddam Hussein] has re-energized, if you will, his efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon."

from 3/16/03: "But there’s no question but what we’re close to the end, if you will, of the diplomatic efforts."

from 9/14/03: "If we’re successful in Iraq . . . we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

from 5/30/05: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Have you figured it out yet?

I theorize that "if you will" means "I am bullsh*tting you."

["If you will" update, 3/20/06: "[Rising public skepticism about the war] has less to do with the statements we've made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."]

posted by TiR at 7:17 PM