 "Wolf, let me just start by saying, it is sixteen words, and it has become an enormously overblown issue." That was national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, speaking the other night to Wolf Blitzer on CNN. She was talking about sixteen words from President Bush's State Of the Union address. The words were "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This allegation was not true, and some people think that the President knew that. My reaction to Dr. Rice's opinion of the importance of those sixteen words was probably different from yours, regardless of whether you feel that it's appropriate for terrorist sympathizers to question the President's integrity when all he did was lie. The reason my reaction was probably different from yours is that you probably don't keep a running list of sixteen-word sentences and phrases that you feel have received too much attention. I do, and I have for some time; it's nailed to my bedroom door. I have a "special pen" that I use when I write on it. It's one of those pens that writes in silvery ink, the kind where you have to be careful about smudging the ink. Nobody is allowed to touch either the list or the special pen. One time, an ambulance had to take a friend of mine to the emergency room; that was a direct result of him touching my special pen. So, probably unlike you, I thought to myself, "This is a message; I am being told that I should publish my list of sixteen-word sentences and phrases on the Internet." Here, therefore, is my list: Copyright © 2003 Steve Schneider. All rights reserved. |
