When you read the president's verbatim answer below, you'll see that his statement makes no sense. This is intentional. It is a prima facie example of "mirroring," a term I learned today which describes the linguistic hat trick that Mr. Bush and his team use to create their patented brand of truthiness.
According to BuzzFlash, mirroring is a way of obliquely phrasing an untrue statement so that a) listeners draw the intended false conclusion and b) the phrasing cannot be deconstructed to show that the statement was untrue. |