Game Over
This sort of thing seems to happen on TV just about once a day:
Just before ducking into his posh doorway the Iraqi ambassador to the U.N. tells a reporter, among other things, "the game is over."
Later a reporter asks Don Rumsfeld to comment and he says something like: "Oh, my goodness gracious. This is not a 'game'. This is serious. This is real life. So let's not get all bogged down in talking about a 'game.' There's no 'game' here. Goodness me. And 'over'? Oh, my word: whoever said that? Listen: do I think we had a good day? Yes. Do I think we'll have a good day tomorrow? Yes. Will tomorrow be as good as yesterday? I don't know. But I hope so. Do I hope it's 'over'? Yes. Do I think it's over? How can anything really be 'over'? Whoever said that must, well he isn't getting any information from me, because I would never have said something like that..."
That takes care of "game" and "over." At least he's not arguing over what the meaning of "is" is.
It's like that mention of the word "regime" by John Kerry. People pretended to freak out over the implications of the literal meaning of an individual word within a figurative phrase in common use that everyone agreed he hadn't actually meant literally. This is just a guess, but I'd say that ambassador wasn't suggesting that there was something trivial or playful about the fact that his country's regime had just been toppled, or very nearly so. (Though I have to say, despite some potentially serious consequences in the future when his diplomatic immunity runs out, he didn't look all that upset about it. He was smiling. He's a regime Iraqi, but maybe he has something in common with the normal Iraqis at that. Maybe once he closed the door, he looked to his left; looked to his right; and, when he was sure no one was watching, said "Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!" and kicked a little Saddam head down the hallway.)
At any rate, "game" in this context means something like "the whole shebang," or specifically "the pretense of putting up a pathetic, ineffectual resistance to this whole invasion/liberation deal." And pardon my French, but I have to agree with him: that game does seem to be pretty over. I hope I haven't said something I oughtn't...
Maybe this kind of convoluted semantic mumbo jumbo has always gone on in the public sphere, but it seems like there's more of it about these days. And the word "game" seems to set off the flurries of phony misplaced literalism more than any other. It's not just Rumsfeld, of course. (I can see why he has got into the habit of choosing his words carefully, though it might be possible to be too careful. And it was a great, pretty entertaining, way of avoiding the question, which is something at which he excels.) But it seems to be happening more and more wherever heads are talking. I've heard it on call-ins at NPR, where the expert guest will preface a response by saying something like "now wait just a minute here. I think it's very dangerous, and we have to be very careful about thinking of this war as a game; it's not a game..." Try it yourself: call Talk of the Nation and see if you can slip a game-related metaphor by them. But they're pros. They'll probably catch it. So to speak.
Anyway, the "bottom" (snicker) "line" (sniff) "is": for Saddam, the "jig" "is" "up." At least, to the extent that anything, especially a "jig," can truly be said to be "up"... Oh, my goodness.
Posted by Dr. Frank at April 9, 2003 05:09 PM | TrackBack