Politics and English

John McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate. I like the way they try to compensate their own weaknesses with someone who has those strengths. If everyone is calling you Old, you choose a young person (Thank God, mid 40s is considered young, at least in national politics !). You are male, so choose a woman. If you are fresh, choose an experienced person. If McCain had chosen a black woman, it would have completed everything.


But, what I am intrigued a lot is the way the media has articulated the credentials of Ms.Palin. Here it is :

Ms. Sarah Palin is a strong conservative woman,

• who is strongly pro-life and a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association,
• a supporter of conservative appointments to the Supreme Court and a committed reformer.
  

I would have thought these are contradictory qualities. But, Republican Politics is quite different !

In Politics, Words have lost all their meanings - Don't take them at their face value. When politicians call something Reforms, be sure that it is going to spoil everything and it is going to hurt you. When some tariff is getting rationalised, expect an increase in costs along with a more complicated method of calculating it. When some pro-poor policies are made more targeted, it just means that thousands of poor people are going to be left out from now on ...

Their dictionary is different from what we use, I think ...