compared to human conversation, it sounds absurd

from froomkin

"Actress/novelist/playwright/essayist Cintra Wilson infiltrated the White House press corps last month.

In one passage, the newcomer recounts McCllellan asserting: "The president [also talked about] our strategy for prevailing in the war on terrorism and defeating the ideology that the terrorists espouse."

Writes Wilson: "Since this was my first exposure, in real time, to the administration's spin jingo, straight from the larynx of a living person, I was so stunned I emitted an involuntarily, hysterical gasp and one of McClellan's frozen über-blondes tried to turn me into a pillar of salt with a penetrating fish-eye.

"The corps is inured to this ideological Esperanto, but it is vertiginous and risible when you first hear it live -- compared to human conversation, it sounds absurd. . . .

"My first revelation: Nobody in the room asks questions like 'How does one militarily defeat an ideology, short of killing everyone who feels that way and their families, then destroying all writings ever produced about that ideology, and disappearing any scholars who've ever had a passing interest in it?' And/or 'Has the president noticed that historically, ideologies usually persist, despite genocide and other disincentives?'

"That's not how questions are asked in the briefing room. How it's done is far more complicated, Byzantine and ineffectual."

She concludes: "McClellan infantalizes the press corps. . . . his tone suggests your persistence in asking these awful questions means that you are crabby and need a nap.""