Part II of II
Regarding recriminations with which one may duly assail Ms. Rawlings-Blake, I think poor judgment is among the fitting ones:
- She and/or her police failed to anticipate and accurately gauge the extent of risk of the protest evolving into a riot, or at least some stripe of wanton violence. It was their combined job at least to recognize the potential for such, yet they clearly didn't, or if they did, they took no action to attenuate violent outbursts before they escalated into a riot. In that regard, the mayor and police were derelict in executing their remit.
Despite my remarks in Part I of this post pair, I do not think it fair to rebuke the mayor for her poor extemporising. Were she to have made those remarks in a calmer setting, yes, I'd find such criticisms fair; however, she delivered her remarks as riots transpired literally down the street from where she stood.
As for rebuffing her under the auspice of according folks the ways and means to destroy a section of Baltimore, well, I think that completely unfair. There's no way in hell that woman intended, as you suggest, to foment/abet vandalism and violence. Yes, the tack her Administration took didn't preempt those atrocities' occurrence, but that they resulted derived from her and the police's poor prescience, not from her will to see them manifested.
It's perhaps worth noting the mayor's linguistic style is what some might call "government speak" or bureaucratese That style exchanges meaning for word-count,[SUP]1[/SUP] and, when used most egregiously, inserts ambiguity and/or vagueness. Superficially, users of that style seem articulate to others who, for the most part, hardly are or, worse, aren't. Mind you, bureaucratese doesn't augur stupidity; it indicates a measure of influency. That said, it's quite possible to speak bureaucratese and also clearly and precisely, albeit inefficiently, convey coherent and well conceived thoughts.
Note:
- It's important to understand the difference between verbosity and comprehensiveness.
- Verbosity --> For however many ideas and qualities one aims to express, using materially more words than are needed to express those ideas/traits is verbose.
- Comprehensiveness --> If one aims to comprehensively express oneself, one must use however many words it takes to do so. Speakers/writers have licence to express not only a basic thought, but also voice, tone, context, and intent. Generally, it takes more words to express more aspects of one's thoughts.
To the extent one accurately conveys all the ideas one intended and uses approximately the fewest possible words, one is succinctly comprehensive.
Audience also factors into the verbosity-and-completeness equation. For instance, were minors my target audience, I wouldn't dare speak/write as I do on DP. I know damn well they'd grasp but portions of what I say. (I did write and speak to my own kids as I do here, but the reason I did so had nothing to do with the context I here discuss.) However, I wouldn't discuss public policy and politics with minors; thus if minors don't fully understand my "routine" prose, that's fine with me for they aren't my target audience. Who is? Adults who understand my prose or anyone, adults or minors, who, not understanding it, ask for clarification.
Whereas I have the imprimatur to self-define to whom I aim to communicate, public officials mostly don't. They certainly don't when delivering an address to their constituents.
End of post pair.
