{"id":38666,"date":"2019-08-30T02:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T02:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=38666"},"modified":"2019-08-30T02:00:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T02:00:04","slug":"mistakes-were-made-governor-who-made-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=38666","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Mistakes were made,&#8217; governor? Who made them?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23TexasTribune%20%23GregAbbott%20%23ElPasoshooting%20%23illegalimmigrants&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/abbott.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-38667\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/abbott-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/abbott-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/abbott-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/abbott.jpg 850w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I worked for a newspaper editor who detests passive-voice sentence construction. He drilled it into us to write with active-voice construction.<\/p>\n<p>So, when I hear a politician say that &#8220;mistakes were made,&#8221; I think of my former editor &#8212; and current friend &#8212; and I see such a statement as a way of a politician seeking to cover his a**.<\/p>\n<p>The basic difference between <em>passive<\/em> and <em>active<\/em> voice grammar is that the reader understands who is doing the deed being described in the text he or she is reading.<\/p>\n<p>Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said that &#8220;mistakes were made&#8221; in the release of a fundraising letter the day before the shootings in El Paso and Dayton. The letter sought to gin up support for efforts to &#8220;DEFEND&#8221; the Texas border against, I presume, illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n<p>The letter went out and then a moron drove from Collin County to El Paso, Texas, and opened fire at a Walmart shopping center, killing 22 people, most of whom were of Latin American descent. Is there a connection? Maybe, perhaps.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2019\/08\/29\/texas-gov-greg-abbott-admits-mistakes-immigration-rhetoric\/\">As the Texas Tribune reported<\/a>: <em>&#8220;I did get the chance to visit with the El Paso delegation and help them understand that mistakes were made and course correction has been made,&#8221; he said.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Tribune continued:\u00a0<em>\u201cThe national Democrat machine has made no secret of the fact that it hopes to \u2018turn Texas blue.\u2019 If they can do it in California, they can do it in Texas \u2014 if we let them,\u201d Abbott wrote in the fundraising appeal.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The governor signed off with another pointed warning: \u201cUnless you and I want liberals to succeed in their plan to transform Texas \u2014 and our entire country \u2014 through illegal immigration, this is a message we MUST send.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I am left to ask: Who made the mistakes and what is the precise nature of the &#8220;course correction&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>I am quite certain my former editor, who has returned to Texas, will read that statement and go into apoplectic shock over Gov. Abbott&#8217;s passive-voice a**-covering.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23TexasTribune%20%23GregAbbott%20%23ElPasoshooting%20%23illegalimmigrants&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I worked for a newspaper editor who detests passive-voice sentence construction. He drilled it into us to write with active-voice construction. So, when I hear a politician say that &#8220;mistakes were made,&#8221; I think of my former editor &#8212; and current friend &#8212; and I see such a statement as a way of a politician &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=38666\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Mistakes were made,&#8217; governor? Who made them?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[8828,2006,2239,4728],"class_list":["post-38666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-el-paso-shooting","tag-greg-abbott","tag-illegal-immigrants","tag-texas-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38668,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38666\/revisions\/38668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}