Cross-posted at Immizen.com
McCain started it, but now 97 Republicans signed a letter today urging Obama to avoid a Susan Rice nomination?
Honestly?
Why? Because she said that “Al-Qaeda had been decimated”? (Among other things)
I remembered when she said it. I was watching “Face The Nation” or one of those political Sunday TV shows with a friend. We were both impressed at how eloquently UN Ambassador Susan Rice was explaining the events surrounding the Benghazi attack. I said I wished I could be as articulate and have such a deep vocabulary as she did. I write political articles, but it takes me hours, sometimes days to do it, and I have to revise and revise. But I am digressing. We were watching this interview and Rice said the following (in case it was Face The Nation):
“President Obama said when he was running for President that he would refocus our efforts and attentions on al Qaeda. We've decimated al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden is gone.”
Now what is funny is that my truly picky friend picked up on the meaning of the word “decimate”. He said Rice was misusing it because decimate really means to reduce in size by 10%. I said I knew the original meaning of the word was something like that, but that people nowadays use it to mean that something has been destroyed. We actually looked it up in Google, now please don’t call us a bunch of nerds (that would be a misuse of the word "bunch" or the word "nerd"). We are really cool otherwise! So anyways, Dictionary.com says that the meaning of “to take a tenth of or from” has become obsolete and that “decimate” means “to destroy a great number or proportion of”.
Which means that Susan Rice used the word correctly. (Snark guys... snark!)
So, note to Republicans, give her a break and go back to figuring out how to solve the fiscal cliff issue. Or, come next elections, you will be decimated, and I don’t mean the old meaning of the word.