“I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood,” McClellan writes. “It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively. I didn’t learn that what I’d said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later.
Parse this I had allowed myself
to be deceived into
unknowkingly
passing along a falsehood.
I let me lie, but because they lied to me, I didn't know, that I lied.
Does this then mean that otherwise
Parse that It
would ultimately prove fatal
to my ability to serve
the president effectively.
Not sure what "It" refers to here. Problems with indefinite pronouns:
Parse the other thing It (that he had allowed himself)
(that he had been deceived
(that he had unknowingly passed along
(a falsehood .... A falsehood ... not falsehoodS, but A falsehood
(or perhaps merely the self-knowledge
would ultimately prove fatal [fatalities occur when people die - Scotty's still living]
to my ability to serve [no longer in service]
the president effectively:
Semantically, I take the effective serving of the President to mean Scotty could have kept on keeping on IF ONLY there had been some way for him to:
allow myself to not be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood (not fatal)
allow myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood (fatal)
I'd learned not of my lie until (years later) those unto whom I had lied BEGAN to figure it out.
Once they figured it out, the jig was up! (p.s. They are SLOW learners.)
Shorter Scotty: I lied. Got caught. Then died.
However: As long as I knew I was lying, I was fine.
[I remember the obfuscations, and REFUSING to answer questions -- not the same as lying]
Flashback - Scotty & Me series published regularly in Common Dreams. Common Dreams published Russell Mokhiber's questions of McClellan at the White House briefings. This series of questions dates to 8 October, 2003.
Mokhiber: Why do you refuse to answer the question whether Karl Rove said that Joseph Wilson's wife was "fair game"?
Scott McClellan: I think we have been through this now -
Mokhiber: But you won't answer the question?
Scott McClellan: - for two days in a row -
Mokhiber: You have been dodging it. Did he say it?
Scott McClellan: I did answer the question.
Mokhiber: Did he say it?
Scott McClellan: Again, I answered that question --
Mokhiber: What was the answer?
Scott McClellan: -- it's been asked for two days now -
Mokhiber: What was the answer, though?
Scott McClellan: - it's been addressed -
Mokhiber: What was the answer?
Scott McClellan: I'm not going to go back through it today, because we have been through it the last couple of days. I've pointed out that there are some who are trying to politicize this investigation for partisan political gain. And that's unfortunate. There is an investigation going on. No one wants to get to the bottom of this more than this White House.
Mokhiber: Why don't you just say - I don't want to answer the question?
Scott McClellan: Anybody else?
Mokhiber: Why don't you say - I don't want to answer that question?
