The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."Where mistakes have been made...." Bush's use of the transitive passive here reflects one of the syntactical tactics at the heart of the Republican rhetorical reconstruction of reality, and gives the appearance of a responsible apologetics while managing to avoid any admission of responsibility.
"Where mistakes have been made...." The phrasing, of course, first implies that mistakes are relatively isolated as indicated by the use of spatial trope "where". But the passive transitive is even more effective in that the reader can not discern the logical agent of action. Who, we might ask, made these mistakes? The "Decider/Decision-Maker" whose decisions produced the mistakes is no where to be found.
"...the responsibility rests with me." Does the phrase state "I am responsible"? Nope. Ya got to love how responsibility is anthropomorphized into something that "rests." Responsibility is now at rest, inert, motionless, and thus psychologically passified--controlled. Thank goodness we don't have to deal with "...the responsibility falls on me." Good heavens, to be hit by "falling" responsibility would be like, well--maybe, being shot at?
"I have made mistakes and am responsible for those mistakes." Now that would be a straight-forward admission.
"I have made 'boo-coo' sad-assed mistakes and thus I am responsible for more death and destruction than any other living person on the face of the planet." Now that would be the truth.
These rhetorical tactics seem sophisticated stuff for a man with a reputation for mangling the English language.
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