Friday, January 9, 2009

This Is As Close As I Get To "Fair & Balanced"


Or, alternate title, we have someone in office because, in part, of who they are related to, let's be sure about it this time.

Caroline Kennedy is positioned to potentially be appointed to Hillary Clinton's soon to be vacant Senate seat. Rhetorical fillers, such as "um", "err", "like" and "you know", for example, are pet peeves of mine. Here are some clips about Kennedy over-using the phrase "you know" in a series of recent interviews over the course of one day:


Here's a news report about her use of the phrase "you know" and how she did generally in a series of interviews:



And here's John Stewart commenting on it, amongst other things, toward the end of this clip:


I understand this is potentially only a rhetorical crutch. But, again, it's one of my pet peeves. And that's not to say that the Senate doesn't have members with questionable resumes or poor communication skills. Also, remember how some thought W.'s verbal gaffes are/were funny? I never thought they were funny. I thought they were and are embarrassing. To me this would be like a professional basketball point guard that can only dribble with his left hand. This is just one series of interviews on one day. And maybe she was just having a bad day. However, verbal inadequacies may be representative of a lack of adequacy in other areas relevant to public office, such as sound decision making or lack of knowledge regarding key policy issues. Maybe. I guess we'll find out if Caroline Kennedy is appointed.

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