{"id":792,"date":"2004-08-31T02:41:17","date_gmt":"2004-08-31T09:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/08\/winning_isnt_everything\/"},"modified":"2004-08-31T02:41:17","modified_gmt":"2004-08-31T09:41:17","slug":"winning_isnt_everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/08\/winning_isnt_everything.html","title":{"rendered":"WINNING ISN&#8217;T EVERYTHING"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P>What does the Nincompoop in Chief really mean? It all depends on the nuance of &#8220;I don&#8217;t<br \/>\nthink you can win it,&#8221; his&nbsp;statement about the war on&nbsp;terrorism in answer to a<br \/>\nquestion&nbsp;from the &#8220;Today&#8221; show&#8217;s Matt Lauer.&nbsp;Now&nbsp;<A class=inline\nhref=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/wire\/Politics\/ap20040831_905.html\" target='new\"'><B><FONT\ncolor=#003399>the AP reports<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>:<\/P><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE>In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said,<br \/>\n&#8220;We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<P>That statement differed from Bush&#8217;s earlier comment, aired Monday in a pre-taped television<br \/>\ninterview, that &#8220;I don&#8217;t think you can win&#8221; the war on terror.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><\/P><br \/>\n<P>Yes, we know:&nbsp;The ninny&#8217;s&nbsp;spokesman trotted out to translate the original<br \/>\nstatement for us. The ninny merely meant there would be no formal declaration of victory. Get it?<br \/>\nNo concluded agreement, no signing ceremony, no diplomats smiling for the cameras and<br \/>\nexchanging pens. &#8220;In this different kind of war,&#8221; the ninny now says, &#8220;we may never sit down at a<br \/>\npeace table. But make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win.&#8221; <\/P><br \/>\n<P>English is such a rich language, magical even. Who knew a&nbsp;simple declarative sentence<br \/>\nmade of seven one-syllable words, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think you can win it,&#8221;&nbsp;could be made to<br \/>\nhave&nbsp;so many shades of meaning?<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What does the Nincompoop in Chief really mean? It all depends on the nuance of &#8220;I don&#8217;t think you can win it,&#8221; his&nbsp;statement about the war on&nbsp;terrorism in answer to a question&nbsp;from the &#8220;Today&#8221; show&#8217;s Matt Lauer.&nbsp;Now&nbsp;the AP reports: In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said, &#8220;We meet today [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-cM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}