Kim Guadagno's denial is not much of a denial
Which is odd since it would be so easy to craft a categorical denial.
Here, I'll give it a shot... "I have never communicated or suggested to Mayor Zimmer in any way that any action on the Rockefeller project in Hoboken would have any effect whatsoever on Christie administration handling of Sandy relief funding."
Guadagno's actual statement was seven paragraphs. You can read the whole thing at link below, but here is every bit of it that is an actual denial of anything:
That's it. The entire rest of the statement is irrelevancy, sophistry, whining, bluster and other sorts of bullshit.
This is a standard sort of "denial," being intended to sound like a categorical denial to stupid or ignorant or inattentive people, but not actually denying the allegation.
Zimmer's version of our conversation is false.
Well, it obviously is not entirely false, since it is stipulated that the conversation took place.
But any deviation from fact would make a version "false." Saying "project" where Guadagno actually said "development" would make an account false while not changing its substance at all.
Pro Tip: Whenever someone broadly denies a news article or a story our ears should perk up. You can't really deny "the New York Times story," for example. A story includes a hundred things that could be denied or affirmed. What can sensibly be denied is a specific allegation. Always remember the scene in All the President's Men where the story says the guy told the grand jury that Mitchell ran the slush fund, and the guy denies that he told the grand jury that, and the story thus appears to be false. But Mitchell did control it and the guy was prepared to testify to that but the grand jury hadn't asked.
So what part of Zimer's account is false? That is not specified. It will, however, be implied...
any suggestion that Sandy funds were tied to the approval of any project in New Jersey is completely false
Were tied to? Why the passive voice? Seriously... why the fucking passive voice in a supposed denial? She is supposed to be denying that SHE SAID SOMETHING. And she is the one doing the denying, right? So why can't she manage denying saying something?
"Were tied..." Tied conversationally or operationly or explicitly or what?
Is the denial that funds were not "tied" in practice, or that no such tie was implied? There was no such retaliation in practice or there was no threat of such?
Not specified.
"Tied to the approval of"
Where did Zimmer say that you said funds were tied to the approval of anything?
That is a very speciffic phrasing of a very speciffic fact amidst an otherwise vague, sweeping faux-denial.
And so on. Wall-to-wall bullshit... and this was not an off-hand denial. It is correct for us to parse this closely because this was a statement it took a full day to write, and that was presented with no opportunity for questions.
Link to statement:
http://www.app.com/article/20140120/NJNEWS11/301200049/Lt-Gov-Kim-Guadagno-s-statement-Zimmer-allegations
= new reply since forum marked as read
every news show on MSNBC tonight. She was soooo disingenuous when expressing her "heartfelt" denial and the "how could anyone do such a thing?" face was bad enough to win her a "Raspberry Award".
And something she said, her exact words basically were fashioned to relieve her of responsibility for the whole thing because it implied that she was merely the messenger. I don't want to watch it again to get the verbatim quote but she went through this tortured explanation and denial and ended by saying that it did come from her. The way she couched the closing phrase of what she was reading off the prepared page led me to think that she'd squeal under oath and she was trying to say that it wasn't her idea.
Apparently, Mayor Zimmer thinks she would squeal under oath too.
