Over (heard) and Out (of context)

I have an odd ear sometimes.

I was sitting in a web development meeting a few days ago, discussing taxonomy, particularly as it structures archiving and identification for the inner workings of a website.

So being a meeting effectively about terms, language, and nomenclature, for whatever reason, small snippets of what my colleagues said seemed to hang in the air a little longer, or at least hang in my ear.

While trying to keep up with the web speak and not look too fidgety at the end of the table, I clung to such gems as:

“...shoes is shoes....”

“...it might be hypercategorizing...wait..that doesn't sound right...”

“...that would completely ruin us...” (laughter) “...that's not an exaggeration....”(dire tone)

“...have you seen the spreadsheet?” (incredulous tone)

“...if you have a lot of W's or M's, it's relative...”

So what's the point of this all, other than giving you the impression I kind of tune out in meetings?

All of those quotes don't make a hell of a lot of sense, and yet for the discussion they pertained to, they held resounding poignancy.

While it is a bit of a stretch, thinking about how amused I am by reading these seemingly random quotes now, compared to how pertinent and applicable they were in the dialogue of our meeting, made me think of the odd way, particularly while campaigning, a small snippet of what someone says can take on such a drastically different life once it is removed from its original context.

Yes, the recent uproar over Mitt Romney's comments about how he likes to fire people stuck in my craw. And no, I don't suddenly feel bad for Mitt Romney. I can't think of too much that would ever make me feel bad for a public figure openly campaigning, particularly a guy this rich (yeah, I'm a classists I guess, so sue me, I'm sure you're lawyers will crush me).

Romney's comments were not very well thought-through, even if the meaning was distorted. In the midst of a recession, especially when you are trying to hammer the incumbent about the struggling economy, you remove a lot of your good will or advantage in that area when you start talking about firing people. Sorry Mitt, but that reality is a little TOO REAL for a lot of people, especially a lot of people you are trying to woo as voters.

But the imprudency of Mitt's word-choice be damned. The way that his political opponents ran with that one, and the way the subsequent media coverage seemed to jump on the reaction to that out of context pull quote rather than actually examining the event and gauging the manipulation later, serve as a perfect example of how you have to take most things with a grain of salt during campaigning; a little skepticism can go a long way.

Or maybe that is too obvious and general of a point, because frankly you should take EVERYTHING you read/hear/see with a grain of salt when it is not properly contextualized.

While I can't seem to trace the adage to it's original utterance, “Context is King.”

Obama fell victim to a similarly hawkish audio editor who pulled out the damnable accusation that “we've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades,” when speaking of foreign investment in America back in November.

Of course every eventual GOP hopeful pounced on him for it. And in an era where everything can be clipped into a manipulative sound byte, perhaps Obama should have been more careful in phrasing the point he wanted to make, about a potential apathy that may have crept up in terms of Americans trying to woo foreign investment, really a challenge lobbed at the higher end of our economic scale than at a working class that had grown “lazy.”

But still everyone had their fun with it. And much like Romney's gaffe, the stories explaining and contextualizing these tepid controversies ran much later and much less prominently than the original outrage, however thin.

So be wary in the next few months when one candidate tries to claim the other put his foot in his mouth. Read beyond the pull quote. Don't even bother listening to the television if that is the best they'll feed you. Be hungry for the whole story, the whole speech, the whole quote, the whole scene – the CONTEXT.

SIDENOTE

Speaking of having a little fun with a Romney quote, I must admit I am a tremendous fan of everything Stephen Colbert is doing right now. There is a certain truth to the idea you can make a bigger mess on the inside than you can throwing rocks from the outside. The way he has used his Super PAC and media image to shed light a lot of very murky and frankly shady election law loopholes is not only hilarious, it is informative.

So now that Colbert is in the mix in South Carolina, his PAC has put out a few ads. While they are all pretty great, one pertains to our conversation here. 

I'm sure everyone remembers Romney's famous utterance, "corporations are people my friend," (I know I did what I just bitched about and took only a clip, but I am driving at another point and not trying to go after Romney on the statement itself). 

Well now that Mitt's corporate past at Bain Capital has been drudged up, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow had a little fun with the apparent moral conflict in Romney's sentiments. 


I think it's safe to say that all of us, regardless of political leaning, agree that murdering a person is wrong. And if corporations are people, than by transitive property you get.....hilarity.

The Colbert Report
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