Thursday, June 23, 2005

"Fixed" versus "Neutered"

Yesterday we made us some fun of Hitchens. But he repeated one of the more ridiculous assertions about the word "fixed" from the Downing Street Minutes.

Never mind for now that the English employ the word "fix" in a slightly different way—a better term might have been "organized."


This has become a reach of the "neocon". Here is Neocon Emerit(ass) James Woolsey:

"I think that's not what fixing means in these circumstances. I think people are not listening to British usage. I don't think they're talking about cooking the books."


Well, what does the journalist, Michael Smith, think of this definitional parsing?

Not much:

"There are a number of people asking about 'fixed' and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed, as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed...the head of MI-6 has just been to Washington. He has just talked with George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq."


Thanks to Daily Dissent.

UPDATE:
I guess I assumed it was well-known, but commenter Monkeyfister is right, I should point out Smith is a "British" jouralist working for the "Times of London" owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Monkeyfister? Sounds like a S&M night with the Bush family.

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