May 16, 2008
Here is an old joke. The wife asks her husband, “How does you secretary dress?” Not giving himself one second to think, the husband replies, “fast!”
People betray their utmost secrets in totally unexpected ways. “Obama says Bush falsely accused him of appeasement “ — but Bush did not even mention him, leave alone accuse him of anything — at least, not any more than the wife in the joke accused her husband of philandering. Yet, the Senator jumped up and shouted “don’t insult me!” when hearing “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” reacting just as the husband in the joke.
The Senator did so only because he recognized himself in President’s words. Had it never occurred to the Senator that negotiating with the terrorists and their sponsors is futile at best, and deadly at worst, he would never have thought that the President referred to him. Obama’s only reaction, left unarticulated because so obvious, would have been “Sure that’s an idiotic thing to believe in!”
But from Senator Obama’s actual reaction we know for a fact that this is not what he actually thinks…