Friday, July 18, 2008

Rhetorical questions, semantics and credibility

Less than a day ago on this blog:
"Or do you think you can force someone to keep on leading a government?" I assumed it was a rhetorical question. Apparently it wasn't. The king declined the resignation.

He appointed three politicians, neither of them Arnold Schwarzenegger (although one of them speaks German too), "to find out how guarantees can be offered to start an institutional dialogue in a credible manner (sic)."

If I read this correctly

  • Their task is not to start an institutional dialogue
  • Their task is not to find guarantees that this dialogue can start
  • Their task is to find out how these guarantees can be offered
So after their task is completed, someone will be appointed to find the guarantees in the manner they described.
When he is finished, this will guarantee that the dialogue will start.

All this probably just to bring us closer to the regional, European and probably also federal elections.

It does make me wonder what has been going on the last year. Wasn't that an institutional dialogue? Doesn't that mean it has started already? Does that make the task of these three politicians even more useless? Or is it the word "credible" that makes the difference?

"Your history classes in high school must have been hilarious" was the comment I got from a French girl today after explaining her our nation's governmental structure. I must agree, but current affairs are promising to be quite entertaining on their own.

The need for Schwarzenegger remains obvious.

3 comments:

forastera said...

Arnold Schwarzenegger and the ancient programmers

BCinc said...

Sic?

Joris said...

I just put the "sic" there to clarify that the quote was not an interpretation but a translation of the official communication.