How You Say It Matters To What You Say

Correct. When Joe Biden steps forward and says "I took them on purpose, those documents belong to me, and I'm not giving them back, and also I just magically declassified them in my mind," then we can both-sides it, but until then, this is just a (serious) screw-up. https://t.co/nGvQiJXjzv

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 11, 2023

I agree it was a screw-up. I'll quibble on the "serious" part.

In the medical jargon we're used to getting when some public person/celebrity is in the hospital "serious" is always attached to "condition," and generally means the patient needs to be in the hospital for the time being.  "Critical" is taken as "like unto death."  I start there because "serious" wobbles around more generally, especially in the political/reporting on government officials context.

Is serious "bad"?  Well, it ain't good.  Got to take violations of national security (i.e., handling of classified documents) "seriously."  But does that mean it's "bad"?  Well, could be worse if it's this:

"I took them on purpose, those documents belong to me, and I'm not giving them back, and also I just magically declassified them in my mind," 

Kinda hard to raise the level higher than that, except maybe by taking a civil suit to the Supreme Court demanding the return of documents, without ever saying in court "I just magically declassified them in my mind," because courtrooms are not places where you play kid's games.

"Serious," though, among pundits and political reporters (two conditions that often appear alike; Maggie Haberman is  'serious' NYT politics reporter, but also a talking head commentator on CNN) is one step away from "grave."  Nothing in politics is ever "grave" unless it's so bad nobody knows what else to call it.  Watergate was "grave."  "Iran-Contra" should have been treated as "grave."  Whitewater was treated as "grave" (the term is implied by the refusal to say it is "merely" "serious"); but it wasn't even serious.  Same with Benghazi, Benghazi, BENGHAZI! (Say that three times into a mirror and the House GOP appears.)  "Serious" is "bad news."  You may mean it is important (which it is) and it warrants proper investigation (which it does) when you say it is "serious."  But in political reporting that word means it's one step away from "grave," and that's enough to promote endless chin-wagging that is, in itself, hardly ever serious.

So is this matter serious?  The DOJ is, rightly, treating it seriously.  Appointing a special counsel blunts criticism of the work of special counsel Jack Smith.  Appointing a lawyer who was a Trump appointee to a position in DOJ is a work of fookin' genius.  This indicates the DOJ and USAG are taking this matter "seriously."  But does that mean it's "serious"?

Well, whaddya mean by "serious"?  I mean, I don't think Biden needs to be hospitalized over this.  I think the more he cooperates the less "serious" this becomes, although his only way of blocking the investigation is to invoke executive privilege.  The FBI is going to be interviewing people to see how these documents got from point "A" to point "Z," and who touched them/read them/had access to them in between.  That's going to require serious effort.  Does that make this issue serious?  Depends on what they find.  Intent?  Or sloppiness?  Did somebody notice the classification status of these documents and willfully hide them to be taken away?  Or was there too much haste and not enough order in the closing days of the Obama Administration with regard to the papers of the VPOTUS?

I dunno.  I do know it needs to be treated seriously; but it may end up not being serious at all, except that the protection of "classified" documents is not as rigid as we might want to think it is.  One would expect them to float rather easily through the White House, especially into the offices of POTUS and VPOTUS.  Gotta get shit done, can't stand everything on ceremony.  Should a better job be done on that end?  Maybe.  Consider, though, that you're trying to stop something that doesn't stop (government and the administration thereof) and while you have from November to January to do it every four (or 8) years, you still can't just close the store and do inventory for that period of time.  Is sloppiness the same thing as "I took them on purpose, those documents belong to me, and I'm not giving them back, and also I just magically declassified them in my mind"?

Are you serious?