Reply #17: Not all editing is Orwellian

[troublemaker]

He didn't read Eisenhower's entire address... whether he left that particular line in or out it was still going to be edited either way.

Since Bush was properly criticized for saying 'crusade' it's a stretch to get upset when he doesn't say crusade.

I don't think he should have compared this shit to WWII at all. He shouldn't have used the address at all. But if he was going to use it there's no harm in cutting out crusade. It's not there's a loss of original meaning, like Eisenhower thought D-Day was about reclaiming the Holy Lands from the Saracen or something.

An Orwellian re-write of history should involve a meaningful change in history, not an edit intended merely to suit popular taste. Our Constitution is almost impossible to read because it was written in what amounts to a different language (old English). Half of the 'real' constitution is mis-spelled to our eyes. The Constitution as it appears in books is NOT the original text but an accepted translation from the original.

But the reason for those changes is content neutral... it's not to fool us as to what the Constitution says but to make it possible for us to even read the thing. Major Edit but not Orwellian.

Now when Bush recites his mythology about our recent economic history--inherited a recession, all job losses tied to 9/11 and accounting scandals, etc.--now THAT is Orwellian.

If a politician read a quote from Huck Finn and left out a stray 'nigger' it would offend me as a purest and Twain fan, but I wouldn't consider it Orwellian. Just very political. If a book purporting to be Huck Finn changed all instances of 'nigger' to 'negro' that would be Orwellian.

My particular irritation here is that he said 100 things in that speech that were actually offensive and controversial, yet this thread is about a silly political cheap-shot sort of flap.

He said in that speech that if we weren't killing these people in Iraq it's not like they would lead productive lives or anything... now that strikes me as more controversial than omitting 'crusade.'