Vice President Al Gore's announcement Monday that government shall henceforth use plain, understandable language is, to us bureaucrats, subversivity at its worst.
Clarity of communication leaves no maneuvering room, whereas fuzzification provides the safety of flexible interpretations. Professional language is the poetry of bureaucracy, the music of staff meeting boobidoodles. Simple language is the mark of a rank beginner in any profession.Would a person of sound mind hire a lawyer who could not project the power of bloatational floatum at a jury? What patient of marginal mentality would choose a surgeon who could not mushify sigmoidal resections with the fallout of interstitial tissue? Professionalism is measured by the ability to drivelate with arrogantual eloquence. Members of Congress know this.
So does Gore. He knows we are the masters of bureaucracy. And bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress.
If the realities of politics, however, force him to put some muscle behind his decree, we will immediately hunkerfy into minimal profiles. We will follow the process of dynamic inaction (doing nothing, but doing it with style) and halljog with pompistrutting strides through neutral hallways. We will establish regional study committees, review committees and survey committees. And we'll appoint incompatible co-chairs. Nothing is impossible until it is sent to a committee.
Public apathy is our final line of defense. Who cares about language in government when the couch is comfortable, the beer is cold and the television commercials are occasionally interrupted by reports of sporting events or political sex?
Politicians can snuggle in the warm embrace of irrelevance, but words are our toga of power, prolixitorially so. By 2002, the war of words will be over. Who do you think will have won?