3 July 2007
Written by Rainer
How to: Biased information
How to generate biased information? Ingredients: Take a speech with few limping analogies and quote them partially so the message suits your needs.
Examples from speech by Trent Lott on how to deal with immigration:
Newsweek, July 2 2007
“I’ve got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain’t no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, to keep those goats in that fence. People are at least as smart as goats. Maybe not as agile.
Time, July 9 2007
“People are at least as smart as goats… Now one of the ways I keep those goats inside the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped couple of times they quit trying to jump it.”
So is Senator Trent Lott (rep.) against building a fence to the border of US and Mexico as it would be in vain or proposing that it should be electrified? Can you figure it out just by reading these quotes?
Of course not. Specially as he wasn’t aiming for either, if we trust on his spokesman Lee Youngblood’s interpretation
Now people are at least as smart as goats. Maybe not as agile. Build a fence. We should have a virtual fence. Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple of times they quit trying to jump it.
I’m not proposing an electrified goat fence. I’m just trying, there’s an analogy there.”
So what actually happened that the senator slipped few frogs which were naturally, or deliberately, misinterpreted while the spokesperson and his PR staff was hitting their head to the wall while hearing this, and later “translated” to politically correct language by the staff.
See it’s that easy.