elide vt:1. omit element of word or phrase. 2. to omit, delete, or ignore something
It’s as if Mr. Obama has taken the oath “I swear I’m lying.” In a really fine piece on President Obama’s public face and verbal tactics, Charles Krauthammer has peeled away and exposed the nuances cradled inside Obama’s language of policy. Krauthammer identifies this as ‘eliding’ (a new one on me, I admit) ?ignoring, leaving out, and deleting essential truths and details, so as to distract and purposely mislead the American public.
Artful and deceptive, ‘eliding’ permits the simultaneous assertion and denial of access to services, the confident prediction and retraction of promised budgets, savings, costs, and taxes, and serves up verbal reassurance for the future coupled with hints of alarm. Mr. Obama is much, much more than a Harold Hill, the con man with the Music Man ‘think system.’ In the pattern of Presidential address that Krauthammer examines, Obama is drawing on the American public’s suspension of disbelief, using the ultimate credit card of plausible deniability to make room for every possible policy contingency and outcome?good, bad, or neutral?that may eventually emerge as a result of his policies (or non-policies).
At this point, many Americans have learned the hard lesson that overuse of credit and bad investments spell hardship and disaster, and have (perforce, in some cases) amended their irresponsible ways. Time for the American public to do the same with the Obama credit card. Cancel it, reconnect culpability with decision making, and demonstrate that the opposing voices of the American polity are a legitimate force to be reckoned with, even if the current power elite cannot dredge up (or fake) even minimal respect for those who don’t drink the elixir from the magical Obama fountain.
