Saturday, June 16, 2007

"Hortatory Subjunctives" (sp?) and "Gerunds"

In another ongoing scandal in bush II's Washington, the General Services Administration chief, bush II appointee Lurita Alexis Doan, is being investigated by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [HCOGR] for having used her office (which looks after the real estate of the federal government and provides other services for the government) as a partisan tool to aid Republican Congressional candidates. (Get a Repug to show up at ribbon-cutting ceremonies, provide renovation jobs during election times, give contracts to personal friends and fellow Repugs, etc.)

Apparently, under her "leadership," the GSA offices had a slide presentation about how all of this could be orchestrated. Like most bush II appointees, Ms. Doan has a terrible memory about her job. About that damning presentation, Ms. Doan remembers only coming in late, that there were cookies on the table, and that some of her staff weren't present. (That's what she said under oath to the HCOGR.)

With GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan and up to 40 regional administrators on hand, J. Scott Jennings, the White House's deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation on Jan. 26 of polling data about the 2006 elections.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could "help 'our candidates' in the next elections," according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country."

Ms. Doan testified that she had never used her position for partisan purposes or personal gain, but there was enough suspicion about her clumsy favouritism, that the Office of Special Counsel investigated her. To the bush II appointed Repug OSC chief, Doan blurted out that she was saving her real story for him. With regards to GSA staff who had testified to the HCOGR that Doan was indeed using the GSA as a partisan tool for the Repubs, she said:

the GSA employees who alleged her violation of the Hatch Act had exhibited "poor to totally inferior performance" and that they would "not be getting, promoted…bonuses or anything of that nature."


Unfortunately, for Ms. Doan, the Repug-appointed OSC chief had more respect for his own office than for Ms. Doan's blatant partisan corruption. When Doan claimed she was looking at her "Black Berry" during the slide show on helping Repug candidates (and therefore could not recall what had been said there), he asked to see her "Black Berry." He found no evidence of any activity on it. (She later claimed she had been reviewing her e-mail inbox.)

When he checked the performance evaluations of the employees who testified about her, he found none of them had received "poor to totally inferior" evaluations. When asked about this at a second appearance before the HCOGR, Ms. Doan blathered on about how there are numerous phases of performance evaluations. In her case, there are hidden, unseen, unverifiable phases that allow her to justifiably withhold bonuses and promotions without any fear of this being the result of retaliation for telling the truth. And, anyway, she didn't have the authority to withhold promotions and bonuses. Democrats on the HCOGR took this apart, asking why she'd tell the OSC investigators she'd withhold promotions when she couldn't (she was speaking hypothetically she said) and that she actually does have the ability to withhold promotions (she thanked them for informing her of this).



Basically, she's another ham-handed, stupid, Republican hack. Like all the half-wits and evil fuck-ups in the Gonzales Justice Department. What's noteworthy about Doan is her delusional self-righteousness and self-pitying whining.

The point of this post? At one point in her testimony, Ms. Doan said that her saying that her employees who testified against her had shitty performance reviews and would be punished, was just her using a "hortatory subjunctive."

My response to this statement was "What the fuck is a 'hortatory subjunctive'?"

It was then that another Democrat Congressman showed that while he might be just a member of another imperialist, corrupt, pro-corporate party of stupidity that is rapidly losing the loyalty of the American public, he is, like Clinton and many others, a smart, clever individual. I got a better understanding of "hortatory subjunctive" that just so happened to toss it all back in Doan's face.



More here. I have no idea what "plu-perfect" is either.

Where's the "gerund"? Well, I was watching a "Daily Show" clip and John Stewart had fun with White House grammar and mentioned a "gerund." When Ben Stiller came on later, he admitted ignorance about what a "gerund" was, and I was grateful, hoping to be able to get Stewart's earlier joke.

They deal with the subject at the beginning of this clip.

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