Reply #6: I need to scream

[Cerridwen]

I guess they all figure if they skip a generation or two and say it in a new country; no one will make the connection.

See connection below.




"Following Richard Nixon in influence on recent fiction would be two runners-up, Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Their administrations put the passive voice, politically, on the rhetorical map. In their efforts to acquire deniability on the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran, their administrations managed to achieve considerable notoriety for self-righteousness, public befuddlement about facts, forgetfulness under oath, and constant disavowals of political error and criminality, culminating in the quasi-confessional, passive voice–mode sentence, “Mistakes were made.”


Contrast this with Robert E. Lee’s statement after the battle of Gettysburg, the third day and the calamity of Pickett’s Charge: “All this has been my fault,” Lee said. “I asked more of men than should have been asked of them.”"

full text of article is here