| Tuesday, November 01, 2005 |
| POLITICIAN SPEAK TRANSLATED - PART 2 |
 This is from the BBC programme 'Yes, Prime Minister' and is the best guide I have seen. Print it off and then sit and watch a politician being interviewed. In almost any interview at least one of these ploys will be used and most often several of them will be used.
Eight Ways to Deal With Difficult Questions
1. Attack the Question. - 'That's a very silly question, how can you justify the use of the words "Above the Law"?'
2. Attack the Questioner. - 'How many years have you spent in government?'
3. Compliment the question. - 'that's a very good question. I'd like to thank you for asking me it. Let me reply by asking you one.'
4. Unloading the question. - Most questions are loaded. They are full of assumptions such as 'A lot of people have said that you consider yourself above the law'. There are two possible replies to such loaded questions:
a) Name Ten
b) Surely in a nation of 60 million people you can find a few people who will say anything no matter how irrelevant, misguided, or ill-informed.'
5. Make it all appear an act. - This approach only works for live TV interviews: 'you know, I've come to the conclusion that I don't agree with what you suggested I should answer when you asked me that question downstairs before the programme began. The real answer is...'
6. Use the time factor. - Most interviews are short of time, especially live 'on air' interviews. Reply: 'That's a very interesting question, and there are nine points I should like to make in answer to it.' The Interviewer will say: 'perhaps you could just make two of them, briefly.' You say: 'No its far too important a question to answer superficially, and if I can't answer it properly I'd rather not trivialise it.'
7. Invoke Secrecy. - 'There's a very full answer to that question, but it involves matters that are being discussed in confidence. I'm sure you wouldn't want me to break a confidence. So I'm afraid I can't answer for another week or two.'
8. Take refuge in a long pointless narrative. - If you can ramble on long enough no one will remember the question and therefore no one can tell if you have answered it or not.
All of these are good ways to deal with difficult questions. If you have nothing to say then say nothing. However, better yet is to have something to say and say it, no matter what they ask you. Pay no attention to the question, make your own statement. If they ask you the same question again, you just say 'that's not the question' or 'I think the more important question is this:' then make another statement of your own. Easy-peasy. |
posted by michael the tubthumper @ 1:00 pm  |
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| 6 Comments: |
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Michael. You are correct! I have given up entirely on listening to politicos and their 'interviews' or 'speeches'. You outline perfectly the doublespeak and evasion of modern 'politicians'. I despair, to be frank.
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In the US, they often use another tactic. If you don't like the question, stall, complicate, pose your own question, and answer that.
It appears that you're responsive when you're not.
Rumsfeld is great at this rhetorical approach. An example.
To answer the question, Are we defeating the insurgents in Iraq?
Rumsfeld would respond, "Well, that's a very difficult questions. To answer that you really have to look at what metrics you use to measure that. Have arrests gone up? Certainly. How many insurgents have we killed in the last year? 2,000. Have we seized weapons caches? Yes, on an amazing scale.
Next question."
See, a series of great soundbites of him appearing to answer questions that weren't asked while not answering the one that was asked.
Brilliant really.
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it is clever but it is galling to here people congratulated on their brilliant performances in parliament or on the tv when that brilliant performance consists of them not telling the people what they are up to
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HAHA! Useful list, I must say. Not very amusing, really...but (sometimes) one has to laugh!
Blair with the Pinocchio nose is funny! :D
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#8 seems to be the most common for Scott McClellan, Bush's mouthpiece.
And the narrative always contains a descritpion of their mutated/perverted form of freedom.
One of the favorite excuses our soldiers like to use for slaughtering innocents is "freedom isn't free." I fucking hate that line. Their kind of freedom costs a half a trillion dollars a year. Anyway, good post Michael.
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Very nice. Politicians, using these tools, have turned language into hindrance to communication. They must be stopped!
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Name: michael the tubthumper
Home: Glasgow, Scotland
About Me: Tub-Thumper - 1. A speaker or preacher who for emphasis thumps the pulpit; a violent or declamatory preacher or orator; a ranter. This blog will be a combination of reasoned posting somedays and an occasional rant.
28 years old, I write and research for a couple of websites and also do my own stuff.
See my complete profile
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| Thumping The Tub Video |
I have made a few short movies. Here are links to free downloads for them all in the order that I made them (as far as I can remember). Please feel free to use, distribute, disagree with, shout at etc etc
Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition
This was a REAL song from World War 2. I was so stunned by it I had to make a movie
How Far Is It From Here to Nuremberg
This is my attempt at a video for the excellent, if worrying, David Rovics (see links) song
What You Like
I believe the word for this is "splenetic". Only 20 seconds long.
Imperial Measures
What is going on in Iraq? Some things you knew, some you didn't. A couple of bits of info are out of date now.
Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here is a 6 minute film about the unprecendted rate of animal extinction we are currently experiencing
Gorillas and us
I don't like creationism, neither did Douglas Adams
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U.S. MONETARY Cost of the War in Iraq - other people are spending too, and the human cost is much higher
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| some of the blogs I look at |
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| Arse of the month |
The inaugural 'Arse of the month' award goes to our very own Scottish First Minister Jack (Joke) McConnell. He seems to spend a lot of his time sucking up to english politicians and yet it appears they don't even know his name. Follow the link to see..
NODOBY KNOWS ME
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| It's All Gone Scottish |
A list of some other Scottish sites and blogs most of which, if not all, are pro-independence. I don't agree with content on all of them obviously. Some are Scots at home, others abroad.
The Scottish Patient
Kim Ayres
Our Scotland
average tosser
1820
big stick small carrot
J. Arthur MacNumpty
World of Jack McConnell
The Firefox Chronicles
Independence 1st
Radio Free Scotland
Scots and independent
Scottish Independence Guide
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Small Nation
Inveresk Street Ingrate
Radical Glasgow
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If you like this site and think it is time to start getting informed here are a few real favourites of mine that will help you blow away the corporate and government propaganda you are constantly bombarded with. It is added to every so often.
politics and the english language
Beyond Hope
the gore exception
your tax dollars at work
a cultural chernobyl
choose life (not trainspotting)
shooting an elephant
a war crime within a war crime...
the menace of liberal scholarship
the modern era of law
naming the problem
the four ages of sand
a news revolution has begun
come september
money is the cause of poverty
countering corporate power
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Michael. You are correct! I have given up entirely on listening to politicos and their 'interviews' or 'speeches'. You outline perfectly the doublespeak and evasion of modern 'politicians'. I despair, to be frank.