It’s Different When You Leave Out the Rest of The…

Words. The things people say have a different meaning when you leave out certain words that they said. When people bring up the phrase, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” from one of then-candidate Barack Obama’s campaign speeches, they leave out the specific things that Obama purported to fundamentally transform.

OBAMA: Five days.

After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that’s taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

OBAMA: In five days, you can turn the page on policies that put greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street.

In five days, you can choose policies that invest in our middle class, and create new jobs, and grow this economy, so that everyone has a chance to succeed, not just the CEO, but the secretary and janitor, not just…

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: … the factory owner, but the men and women on the factory floor.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: In five days, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election, that tries to pit region against region, and city against town, and Republican against Democrat, that asks — asks us to fear at a time when we need to hope.

In five days, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.

Among the steps listed to “fundamentally transform” our country:

1. An allusion to financial “reform” — what eventually became “Dodd-Frank.”
2. A call for more laws and regulations, in an attempt to grow the economy, and he wasn’t kidding.
3, 4, and 5. Platitudes.

In other words, “fundamentally transform” was as vapid a vessel as “Change we can believe in.”