A view from the UK. I watched Obama’s closing remarks on his Budget Summit a week or so ago.

While your “Renew America Act” may have a more appealing sound it is emotionally loaded and equally unclear. At least “Stimulus” is the correct term in Economics, and can have a precise meaning: although expectations need further managing back to reality of likely results.

There are hard decisions to take and the public must have it explained why a degree of austerity is not only inevitable but necessary. My impression from his closing remarks particularly on health is that Obama does feel his mission is to educate the public to the point they can understand the debate. Fewer un-insured is a necessity or hardship and social injustice follows but at the same time medicaid is unsustainable, cuts must be made and the pain shared between consumer, provider and taxpayer. Promises to root out fraud and waste are not new and not enough.

best regards James

Kind regards,
Brian

I like your title for the President’s bill. “Stimulus” is tentative and sounds like a very modest start, which is what it will probably turn out to be, but I don’t think that is what the Congress and the White House should be conveying to the American people at a time when they want dramatic action despite their fear that things will get a lot worse before they get better. I think you’ll agree that last night’s Presidential Address was a lot more in line with your hope-filled approach.

Regarding Shakespeare’s quote, I think the complete statement is much stronger than the excised version. It makes the absurdity that the poet wants to express inescapably clear by citing specifics of what a name is not — using the power of rhetorical negation (what did he say?) to emphasize his point.

Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet….

As to rewriting someone else’s words, that’s always a two-edged sword. For example, in your sentence about the kids’ schools and the police/firefighters, the phrase that begins with “so” is a dangler. Better to rewrite the sentence to avoid the confusion between it and what comes before. There are other issues, as well, but I give you an “A” for stepping to the plate to make a point. It’s not easy reworking other people’s words and, in my experience as a writer, editor and teacher of writing, doing so is often considered impudent and arrogant. I’ve been there, done that. Unfortunately, most writers have frail egos despite their protestations to the contrary. And one person’s editing is another person’s poison.

I’ve reworked the writings of others and improved them enormously — with kudos from the writers’ managers and the writers’ target audiences — but in the process I also inadvertently undermined, in some cases virtually annihilated, the writers’ confidence. I now tread more softly on other people’s words. I do much less editing and rewriting and give a lot more advice and counsel about what the writers are trying to accomplish and what they might do to make what they’ve written better. To borrow from your blog, I want to give them help based on hope not mere admonishment. I’m not always successful but I try — borrowing more of your words — to lighten the load, share in the yoke, and be my brother’s keeper. That’s enough love for my neighbor.

This emphasizes what I’ve been talking about with others lately too. It seems many politicians are starry-eyed over their own double-speak. If it comes in a slick package and sounds good, it must be right. But, it’s time to stop with the light and smoke show and talk in real terms.

Dr. Rus