Perfect in What Sense?

Nobody asked but …

POTUS has a disturbing tendency to use more hyperbole with an inverse relationship to the likelihood of outcomes.

He tweets that strikes on Syria were “perfectly executed,” when the reality is that execution has nothing to do with how the events will affect the history of humankind. “The operation was a success but the patient died.” “The cop gunned down 12 dogs, but he followed procedure to the letter.”

Aren’t we sick of bureaucratese yet?

Pay attention. You cannot make an event perfect by calling some minor, undistinguished facet of it perfect. It is the logic fallacy of composition. If one shoe is shined that doesn’t mean that an individual is well shod.

— Kilgore Forelle