President : How's your boy?
Webb : I'd like to get them [sic] out of Iraq.
President : How's your boy?
Webb : That's between me and my boy.
On reading this exchange, it would probably be fair to think of Bush as a gentle concerned soul who, even after being rebuffed by the impolite Webb, continued to inquire about the well-being of Webb's son, who is serving in Iraq, only to be rebuffed again. One might even call Webb a "boor" and describe Bush's question towards Webb as "civil and caring" as Will does in his column.
Yes, that would be fair. If it were actually so. But George Will is not being entirely honest here. That's because he posts the link to the entire exchange in his column and this is how the conversation actually went :
President : How's your boy?
Webb : I'd like to get them [sic] out of Iraq.
President : That's not what I asked you, how's your boy?
Webb : That's between me and my boy.
Now doesn't that change things a bit? Doesn't Webb's response look much more reasonable now and Bush's seem to be petulant, infantile and yes, rude. And doesn't this pretty much demolish the basis of George Will's column, called "Already too busy for civility" which criticizes Webb for being an uncivil cad?
What was George thinking? Did he deliberately and mendaciously omit the truthful exchange from his column in order to bolster his non-existent point based on the belief that his readers would be too lazy to click through the link and check up on the facts? Did he recite the conversation through memory which can be pretty treacherous for a person of advanced age? Was it just sloppy editing? Or was it an instance of constructing facts around an already drawn premise, namely Webb's supposed boorish personality?
Whatever it was, it was a pretty sad spectacle to behold.
No comments:
Post a Comment