Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Negotiating Without Preconditions, Which Are Nouns, But...

U.S. to Respond to North Korea with ‘Strongest Possible Adjectives' ....

Obama: We are Prepared to Consult Thesaurus ....

One day after North Korea launched a successful test of a nuclear weapon, President Obama said that the United States was prepared to respond to the threat with "the strongest possible adjectives."

In remarks to reporters at the White House, Mr. Obama said that North Korea should fear the "full force and might of the United States' arsenal of adjectives" and called the missile test "reckless, reprehensible, objectionable, senseless, egregious and condemnable."

Standing at the President's side, Vice President Joseph Biden weighed in with some tough adjectives of his own, branding North Korean President Kim Jong-Il "totally wack and illin'."

Later in the day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the North Korean nuclear test "supercilious and jejune," leading some in diplomatic circles to worry that the U.S. might be running out of appropriate adjectives with which to craft its response.

But President Obama attempted to calm those fears, saying that the United States was prepared to "scour the thesaurus" to come up with additional adjectives and was "prepared to use adverbs" if necessary.

"Let's be clear: we are not taking adverbs off the table," Mr. Obama said. "If the need arises, we will use them forcefully, aggressively, swiftly, overwhelmingly and commandingly."

(Laughingly lifted from the usually solemn, grim, somber, sober, & sepulchral Dr. John Ray.)

2 comments:

Ling Carter said...

Nothing says resolve like a foreign policy of the carrot stick and the even-bigger carrot.

Steve Burri said...

The power of their resolve will be trebled by the use of comparative and superlative degrees.

As the harsh rhetoric ramps up, the -er and -est ending will be drawn from the arsenal along with 'more' and 'most.'

This spectacle will be bloody, bloodier, and finally, bloodiest.

We have taken to our backyard fallout shelter.