THAT SAID...

The title should actually be, “That Said, and other warnings of flip flops to come.”

Have you ever noticed how a pundit, politician or talk show personality, host or guest will say something that seems to put forth one side of an argument only to add the words, That Said?

It’s the ‘That Said’ part that signals the complete opposite thought is coming.

Now if you are paying close and complete undivided attention to the entire statement you may be able to parse exactly what side the speaker espouses.

Sadly most of America, myself included has not the patience nor deductive reasoning skills to keep our focus long enough to realize the speaker is generally full of it and merely trying to confuse the listener.

The two words basically mean I want to say both sides of the issue upon which I am pretending to pontificate in the hopes that you the listener will believe I am on your side when in fact I have no side except my own!

It is also a way to get a point across while attempting to stop the other side from debating you since you already stated their supposed position.

If your opponent should decide to go ahead and state his side after you have used the ‘that said’ ploy he will only look foolish repeating what you have already said.

It is similar in tactic to throwing in the, “And as you know,” phrase to get the audience to think you in fact know you are wrong and the speaker is the authority on whatever he is saying.

But there are other ways you can tell when the speaker is lying or fibbing or merely attempting to mislead.

For one his name is Willard Mitt who will never admit he is on one side or the other.

To flip flop is not
bad unless you
rotate!

But in general if a politician has his mouth open then look out!

Lately the Republican Party has been so guilty of this form of constant prevarication as to have the wonderful people at Guinness take note.

That is not to say that Democrats don’t hide the truth sometimes as well but generally when they do so they are trying to hide their allegiance to the so called 99% or the non-super, non-uber wealthy.

If the Democrats come out too much in favor of the common man they run the risk of losing all their funding from the group that can basically buy the country ten times over, as is being shown in the post ‘Citizen’s United’ ruling of the supreme beings of the Supreme Court.

That said I cannot condone any lies from either side of our political system.

That that said I understand that there must be some level of secrecy involved when dealing with matters of homeland security and foreign relations. After all if we the people know what’s on the minds of our leaders and their strategy going forward then there is a fair bet so do the enemies of America.

That that that said I also feel there should be some form of accountability for actions taken by our leaders in the name of country. (Note I left off the words ‘God and’ in front of that phrase.)

I note that our founders never wished America to be run by one branch of government or the church for that matter but rather by three branches. And only the office of the President is held by one individual while Congress, by its very name is a group of hopefully intelligent people to balance and check the other offices.

And my last ‘that said’ is one can only hope that our leaders will come to their senses soon and stop our downward spiral into total and abject stupidity within the halls of all government offices and agencies.

I would like to see one final flip flop and this time it would be toward actual compromised decisions and governance in the spirit of those wonderful words, “of the people, by the people and for the people.” For without ‘we the people’ what good is America?