ari goes meta
By Todd Stadler · Thursday, March 27, 2003 1:42pm
Maybe I've just been reading White House press briefing transcripts for too long, but I found yesterday's transcript a bit surreal.
MR. FLEISCHER: There will be a news conference at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow at Camp David with Prime Minister Blair. And there will be no red-eye tomorrow as a result ? no red-eye, no gaggle, no briefing tomorrow, as a result of events up at Camp David. You'll instead be wined and dined and entertained by the summit-level news conference of the President and the Prime Minister.
Let the transcript show, open parenthesis, some mild levels of laughter, closed parenthesis. (Some mild levels of laughter.)
It's like a play within a play. Whoa.
4 comments so far
1 Mar 27 '03 6:29pm:
Mud replied:
""'I think you need to defeat them in detail,' said the general, using the military term for destroying a unit. 'I think you should 'Pac Man' the ring around Baghdad,' he said, referring to the 1980s computer game in which a big dot gobbled up smaller ones."
This one comes from the Washington Post article that was posted on the March 27th Thoughts section of this forum.
I'm not sure which is worse:
- that they're comparing military operations to a cheesy 1980s game I played as a kid...
- or that they felt compelled to explain what it was so that readers who are too young to have ever seen the game will be able to make sense of the general's rather strange reference...
The next question I had was whether the arcade game was being used currently as a method for training other military strategists.
It may go for explaining a lot...
Wacka Wacka Wacka Wacka...."
2 Mar 28 '03 8:35am:
Chip replied:
"I find that remark from the General refreshing because it shows me that the people making the decisions are at least mature in years.
I was thinking that the Washington post was explaining it because to make sure to lower it to a level there normal reader base can understand :)
Sorry I had to throw that in.
Chip
"
3 Mar 29 '03 5:56pm:
Elise replied:
""And now for something completely different..."
I think I've reached my own personal saturation point and have become tired (physically exhausted in fact) of thinking about the war, talking about the war and looking up news about the war. It's not that I don't care. I care desperately. I care so much - I think my brain is going to explode or that I might suffer a similar fate as the person featured in this Tom Tomorrow strip.
So I went online in search of things that would make me laugh.
I thought I'd pass this along...
How to dance properly
How to Impress a Date
courtesy of zefrank.
Hope you like it..."
4 Apr 02 '03 9:45pm:
satireDUN replied:
"i love you."