New York magazine has
a lengthy profile of Stephen Colbert in the latest issue. The Comedy Central star makes this interesting observation about word choices and politics:
Language has always been important in politics, but language is incredibly important to the present political struggle. Because if you can establish an atmosphere in which information doesn’t mean anything, then there is no objective reality.
That allows Colbert, the persona, to come up with demented logic like this:
Don’t pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68 percent of Americans disapprove of the job [Bush] is doing. I ask you this: Does that not also logically mean that 68 percent of Americans approve of the job he’s not doing?
