Quote For the Day: WSJ Ed. Board Edition

Mr. Obama sought more tax-hike cover under his deficit commission, seeming to embrace its proposal to limit tax deductions and other loopholes. But the commission wanted to do so in order to lower rates for a more efficient and competitive code with a broader base. Mr. Obama wants to pocket the tax increase and devote the revenues to deficit reduction and therefore more spending.

The Presidential Divider
Unsigned Wall Street Journal
Editorial” Aptil 14, 2011

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “sophistry” as “subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation.” Under that definition, the passage that we have excerpted from a recent Wall Street Journal editorial on President Barack Obama’s recent speech on deficit reduction hardly qualifies as sophistry. The problem is the word “subtly.” Because really, there’s nothing “subtly deceptive” about a paragraph that argues that directing government revenues to paying down the national debt is just another example of reckless and uncontrolled Democratic spending.

The word “disingenuous,” comes closer to the mark. According to The Free Dictionary, something is disingenous when it is “not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating.” There’s no doubt that the Wall Street Journal’s editorial is “insincere” and it doesn’t strike us as particularly “straightforward.” However, it’s the word “calculating” that bothers us in the present context. Because, you see, “calculating” implies “calculation,” which in turn implies that some sort of rational process went into crafting this argument. And that implication, we feel, gives the quoted passage waaaaay too much credit. The passage reminds us less the “calculation” involved in a teenager’s futile attempt to convince his parents that there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for the dime bag of marihuana they found between his mattresses than it does the “who gives a shit” attitude of the bored future dropout’s “christmas treeing” his SAT so he can get out of the examination room as quickly as possible. While the former teen’s explanation may prove unconvincing, the latter isn’t even trying… much like the quoted passage. 

So after much careful thought and consideration, we have come to the conclusion that no single word fully conveys the thoughts, reactions and emotions that a reading of the quoted passage arouses in us. Instead,  a whole phrase at least is required to describe the passage, and the phrase that best describes it is as follows. The quoted passage and the argument it sets forth are: “inconceivably, irredemably, impossibly, jaw droppingly idiotic.”

(Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan)