Messaging is EVERYTHING!!!

When I was anchoring, way back when I was still working, I realized something. I could say "Reagan says... " OR "Reagan claims... "

And I realized it
A) passed muster with my eagle-eyed editor who didn't miss much,
B) it WASN'T misleading or factually inaccurate,
C) and it could "fly under the radar," coloring the sentence it started, and casting just a weeeeeee bit of doubt so slightly it wasn't noticeable.
D) and it wasn't in any way yelling out that he was a liar. Sometimes he was, but other times he was just being a salesman like he always had been. With him, I got the sense that it wasn't "how can I fool 'em" but rather "how do I sell this most effectively" because I think he sincerely believed some of this shit would help people. He must have had more slickie-boy salespeople doing the construction. By stark contrast, consider what trump's shtick is. AND his motivation. With him, it always boils down to "how can I fool 'em?" He doesn't care. Just as long as it's something that benefits HIMSELF. If anybody else benefits besides him, well, call that a happy accident.

Frankly, in a technical sense, everything ol' Ronnie said and promised and stated as fact could be written this way and would stand, because so much of nearly everything he said was a claim, and often rather debatable if you really dug into it. It was more accurate to call it a claim rather than a statement. It'd still work, either way. So that's what I did. And I was familiar enough with whatever issue it was that I KNEW the claim was more bullshit and wishful thinking than solid fact.

And that's how I started learning the value and strategy of HOW you word something.