I would like to welcome aboard the newest Peace Tree contributing Author, Sam. Sam wrote me an e-mail in response to a post I did recently and he blew me away. I invited him to join us here at the Tree and I am thrilled to welcome him with his debut post.
Rice-A-Roni
Sam
In an apparent attempt to deny ever having been warned by George Tenet & Cofer Black, prior to 9/11, about a planned foreign attack against the
"What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible".
It sounds to me as if she’s been attending the Bill Clinton "well now, that all depends upon how you define the word ‘is’" school of pretzel-logic thinking. Let’s take a closer look at the quote, shall we?
She states she’s "quite certain" that she’d remember something she implies she doesn’t remember, (but which Bob Woodward claims to have clear documentation to the contrary). I could be wrong, but this appears to be a classic attempt to lay the groundwork for some future "plausible deniability" – she doesn’t say it never happened, or even that she doesn't remember it happening. All she says, in a convoluted way, is that she’s certain she would remember it, if it had happened, because anything else would be incomprehensible. Yet the implication is that she doesn't really remember it, although she doesn't quite exactly say that either. In truth, she really isn't saying anything definitive whatsoever. (What I find incomprehensible is that a reporter can listen to such nonsense, and not question it immediately for clarification.)
Rice then proffers the following mind-bender:
"I don't know that this meeting took place, but what I really don't know, what I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond," Rice said.
She starts off by saying she doesn’t know that [sic, if?] this meeting took place. She’s not saying she’s sure it did or didn’t; just that she "doesn’t know" that/if it did or didn’t. (again, garden-variety "plausible deniability"?) Then, it really gets interesting. The expression "what I really don’t know, what I’m quite certain of..." is totally bizarre. Is she saying she’s quite certain she really doesn’t know, or, she's quite certain she really does know? She then goes on to say, again in the negative, (the point about which she’s certain she either does or doesn’t know) that this meeting that either did or didn’t take place "was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond".
In essence, she’s saying she’s quite certain she really doesn’t know that the meeting was not one in which she was told about an impending attack, and to which she refused to respond.
Therefore, when you strip it down, she’s really saying that she’s certain she doesn’t know anything about this meeting, leaving all possible doors open.
That she knows the meeting did take place and she was warned about an impending strike against America.
That he meeting did take place and she was not warned.
That the meeting took place and she was warned, but doesn't remember being warned.
That the meeting took place and she was warned and she does remember being warned.
I don’t see any other way to begin to get to the bottom of the words she spoke, in the order in which she spoke them.
All I know is that my head hurt after reading and re-reading those lines several times.
And these are the people we have running our country? Is it really any wonder we’re in the mess we’re in?
Quote Source: apnews.myway.com
