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February 20, 2015
People are fond of saying that Harf or Psaki are airheaded, for example.
at keeping their stories and talking points straight, firing off a flurry of glib words to get those points across, and sticking relentlessly to message in the face of some difficult questions and no small amount of mockery and potential embarrassment. You might say that they are shameless. Perhaps. However, they are buoyed and driven not only by personal ambition, but also by their dedication to whatever they think their party and their boss stand for, so much so that they believe that telling lies and manufacturing spin is a noble calling. This accounts for their triumph over any lingering shame they might feel. As with Winston Smith’s interlocutor O’Brien, they not only say that 2 + 2 = 5, but they come to actually believe that on a certain level it’s true as soon as they say it. -- not easy being a spokesperson
Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 20, 2015 1:33 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Even a used car salesman has more self respect than that.
Posted by: BillH ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://americandigest.org/sidelines/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 20, 2015 2:24 PM
Automatrons, they cannot be cured, they must be eradicated. Like what Kyle Reese said about the Terminator. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
Kyle Reese: There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah.
Sarah Connor: I don't understand.
Reese: Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.
Sarah Connor: Did you see this war?
Kyle Reese: No. I grew up after. In the ruins... starving... hiding from H-K's.
Sarah Connor: H-K's?
Kyle Reese: Hunter-Killers. Patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put in camps for orderly disposal.
[Pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark]
Kyle Reese: This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah, your unborn son.
Posted by: ghostsniper at February 20, 2015 2:49 PM
Unfortunately, for what they do, self-respect isn't a requirement. Sandra Fluke had more self-respect. She at least wanted to get paid for getting laid. ( in some form of currency)
Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at February 20, 2015 2:52 PM
Getting a paycheck, some kind of respect from the retrogrades signing the check, a modicum of power -- what else does a sycophant need to betray the present and the future?
Posted by: Stug Guts at February 20, 2015 3:12 PM
Turnips, railroad ties, and gravel have more self awareness and are more likely to sense shame than either of them.
Posted by: indyjonesouthere at February 20, 2015 4:42 PM