Fuzzy and Harriet (Harriet's convoluted writing style)

Before initiating the writing of a newspaper column in which the implementation of a plan of humor is to be effectuated, the prioritization of goal-oriented objectives is warranted so as to rhetorically establish, by effective utilization of satirical example, that Harriet Miers writes this way.

She does. Harriet would have been a very scary Supreme Court justice, but not for the reasons that doomed her. Much was made of her religious convictions, her lightweight constitutional background, and her high regard for George W. Bush -- her admiration of his intellect, her support for his conservative policies, her willingness to do his laundry, etc. But her writing was especially instructive. Did you see it? Her prose makes an apartment lease read like Hemingway. She is windier than Katrina, wordier than Roget, blander than a Perry Como-Barry Manilow duet. In the passive voice are written all her sentences, and they are as convoluted as Einstein's brain. And yet for all this jargonized verbiage, she never quite gets to the, you know.

(snip)

Here is an actual quote from one of Harriet's legal articles:

"We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective."

Here's another:

"An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission . . . With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."

(snip)

P.S. Harriet's withdrawal letter contains this line: "I have decided that seeking my confirmation should yield."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005110300503.html

I buy cheap copies of Strunk & Whites , 'Elements of Style', at thrift stores and garage sales. I send these to deserving authors.
Harriet Miers needs one badly.

It takes someone like that to worship at the altar of BS personified.

lawyerese. I'm currently learning to be a paralegal, and in 2005 there's a strong move afoot to simply legal writing. But it's going to be a long time before sentences like that disappear from legal writing.

I write "laweyerese" all day, its my job. It can be done in a clear, direct way. Her "style" is not so much a style as evidence that she is a person who does not think logically. People who don't understand what they are talking about often sound, and write, that way.

by lawyers. It seems to have been encouraged in law school in the past. Maybe it's changed recently, hopefully many law school push for clear writing.

Although I also think you're correct in what you said about the kind of people who write in that convoluted way.

I cut my teeth reading the Rules Tariff for airlines. While it's not quite as bad as The Worst of Harriet, it is (or was back when I was reading it during the 70s) written in the kind of over-complicated, let's cover every single possibility, style that tend to make eyes glaze over easily.

And even now, budding paralegal that I am, I constantly laugh at the standard format for most court documents. "Comes now" and so on and so forth. Lawyers and legal writing still have a long way to go.