It occurred to me while posting in the passive voice discussion that politicians in general, but particularly Presidents are in a no win situation with critics of their speech making.

If they use use the passive voice a lot they are accused of hiding their responsibility behind the passive voice.

If they change it to the active voice and say "I did this... My decision was... etc" the critics count up the number of Is and Mys and accuse them of being arrogant.

If they use the more impersonal "We" and "Our" they are accused of trying to shift the blame to their staff.

It's hard to see how any President could ever make a speech that wouldn't have some linguistically incompetent nincompoop try to make specious grammatical points about it.

There is more to it than that. The Republicans think Obama mangles his message and the Democrats think that of Bush. Only one is right.

Bob, that's why Bush said, "Mistakes were made." God forbid saying "Our administration (or whoever) made mistakes."

[Edit: Added missing quotation mark]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Mistakes were made.

(Critics will say - "you are trying to pretend that it wasn't you who made them)

The administration made mistakes.

(Critics will say - "you are trying to say that the Administration is not your responsibility.")

We made mistakes.

(Critics will say - your are trying to spread the blame.)

I made mistakes.

(Critics will say that using "I" shows that you are arrogant and self-centred)

As I said - no way to phrase it that doesn't draw barrages of nonsensical linguistic claptrap.

And that goes for whoever is in power.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

There is always "What mistakes?"