OK, Forget “Fog.” But Bush Wants to Keep “War.”
Thursday, March 2, 2006 at 09:13AM 
Quote: “I don’t buy the ‘fog of war’ defense. It was a fog of bureaucracy.” Former FEMA director Michael Brown, speaking to the Associated Press.
Figure of Speech: antistasis (an-TIS-ta-sis), the figure that changes a word’s meaning.
The White House says its incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina resulted from limited and confusing information—“the fog of war,” they call it. “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,” President Bush said four days after Hurricane Katrina.
But videotape leaked to the AP shows Bush himself was well warned—by Brown among others. Brown fires off an antistasis (“anti-position”), which repeats a word in order to change its meaning. The antistasis lets you use an opponent’s own term to redefine the issue.
Brown is making a good start on the post-hurricane restoration of…Brown.
Snappy Answer: “And now, apparently, we’re in the fog of spin.”
Reader Comments (3)
WASHINGTON Mar 2, 2006 (AP)— In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast, Louisiana’s governor hesitantly but mistakenly assured the Bush administration that New Orleans’ protective levees were intact, according to a new video obtained by The Associated Press showing briefings that day with federal officials.
“We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees,” Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29, according to the video that was obtained Thursday night. “We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time.”
"There was a demonstration in Oxford on Saturday defending testing drugs on animals. The NS asked, Where was the left?
'The left has been left behind.'
A perfect antistasis. Thanks, John.
Fig.
Simply pointing out that other officials were in a fog does not change the point of the original post.