Wow!

Impeach Frances Fragos Townsend. Impeach her now. And impeach George W. Bush too:

The Washington Monthly: REDEFINING FAILURE.... Frances Fragos Townsend, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, was on CNN yesterday discussing the war in Iraq, Saddam's pending execution, and the Middle East, but CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry had the temerity to ask about the terrorist behind 9/11.

Officials from this White House are known for some bizarre comments, but Townsend's response has to go in the Hall of Fame. (via)

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

A "success that hasn't occurred yet"? By that logic, practically nothing could ever be characterized as failure. Indeed, I'm not sure why the Bush gang hasn't thought of this sooner.

"Budget deficits are just surpluses that haven't occurred yet."

"Global warming is just global cooling that hasn't occurred yet."

"Stagnant wages are just raises that haven't occurred yet."

"The civil war in Iraq is just peace that hasn't occurred yet."

It'd be amusing if it weren't so sad.

Comments

[Cal]

Isn't this their moment of "depends what the definition of 'is' is"?

The Daily Show should be able to make hay out of that line for two years. Honestly, it sounds like something Steven Colbert would opine on The Report.

[Godfrey Parke]

"The solution is just the impeachment that hasn't happened yet."

[Adrasteia]

What's next, War is Peace? Or have we done that one already?

[bluetaco]

Remember:

"A stranger's just a friend you haven't met"!!

-The Simpsons

[oldnumberseven]

Hell, by that logic, I think I may have graduated college. Huzzah!

[Bruce Webb]

Brad, given the fact that we have always been at war with Oceania is this really the time to challenge the truthiness of the Bush Administration?

Frances is doing the best she can given the policy manual she was handed. Too bad it is a third hand copy of '1984'.

[Kate G]

Actually, Brad, I think Bush *did* use just this locution in a recent interview. Possibly the one that the Daily Show parodied, and Garance Franke Ruta, when he described how he wasn't lying to assert "we were winning" because he was really just expressing confidence in the future.

Kate G.

[Bupa]

"Wanted Dead or Alive,"

but

Life is just Death that hasn't occurred yet.

[MattF]

I dunno... I can't even think of a word to describe this level of mendacity. Can you be impeached for something that beggars description?

[CathiefromCanada]

Yes, I did a post on this, too -- corporations can also use it, to describe how unemployment and a weak housing market and high inventories describe a strong economy that just hasn't occured yet.
Kudos to Kate G. for pointing out how Bush actually originated the concept -- I hadn't understood how his we're-winning-because-we-will-win-in-the-future line but now it is clearer, isn't it.

[howard]

based on my quite modest experience, there is plenty of demand in corporate america for people whose thought processes work like townsend's do....

[VennData]

'KERRY WOULD OF BEEN [sic] WORSE!'

This is a variation on the 'arguement' I hear more often these days: the 'Kerry would of been worse' arguement (bolstered by his recent 'stuck in Iraq' 'joke.')

It's not the straw man-like counterpoint the GOP has used so often the last few years, the 'some people say' argument as in 'some people say Ay-rabs don't want freedom...'

...Nor is it the 'have no doubt' argument or 'if you question bad things will happen' as in 'if you question the President's decisions on the terrorists in Iraq, you don't support the troops.'

It's not even the 'Big lie / I know what he thinks' one: you know, like 'Al Gore thinks he invented the Internet' or 'Kerry lied about his war injuries, therefore he'd lie about anything.'

Let's call this new media management tool the 'un-reality' arguement.

I can see the handlers whispering into their wireless mics which feed the ear pieces of the Administration touts ala cheating chess competitors, 'OK... throw an un-reality at them on the Osama bin Laden one...''

[Bernard Yomtov]

My series of Nobel Prizes are great successes that just haven't occurred yet.

[Ereshkigal]

And our President is just a jerk who isn't off yet.