Hyperbole is the worst thing in the universe

Algore, on the subject of invading Iraq: "...[M]y friends, this nation has never in our two centuries and more made a worse foreign policy mistake...."

Maybe it's the Internet, maybe it's our schools' failure to teach history, but have you noticed that hyperbole is the dominant mode of discourse these days? The Democratic presidential candidates are falling over themselves to show how gosh-darn mad they are. Fine — but why does everything have to be "the worst ____ in history" or "a total failure" or "a complete disaster"?

Hyperbole precludes real arguments from taking place. How can anyone seriously argue that "never" has there been a "worse foreign policy mistake"? Never ever? How about the failure to encourage France and Britain to crush Nazism in the 1930s? Or in 1919, to "smother Bolshevism in its cradle," as Churchill wanted to do? The prosecution of the Vietnam war in the 1960s? The flaccid response to Soviet aggression in the 1970s?

Or take a matter close to Catholic Light readers' hearts. Remember when the homosexual priest scandal was at its height? People who should have known better were saying that this might be "the end of the Catholic Church in America." Some fevered souls were saying that this would "shake the roots of the Church itself." While it was probably the most grave scandal in American church history (or is that hyperbolic?), it hasn't affected the direction of the Church, at least not yet. If anything, it has emboldened orthodox Catholics to press for true reform, and encouraged the heterodox We Are Church types to increase the volume of their shrill, rear-guard campaign to abandon the Church's solemn teachings.

For the record: Algore is the worst politician in 5,000 years of recorded history. So there.

(Thanks to Publius for bringing Algore's words to our attention.)