President Barack Obama set off a firestorm of criticism on Friday when he said "We tortured some folks" after the 9/11 terror attacks — a phraseology many found irksome and disingenuous.
Obama made the comment while responding to a forthcoming Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the CIA's interrogation tactics in the years following the 9/11 terror attacks. According to leaked summaries, the Senate report condemns the CIA's use of interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, but stops short of alleging criminal wrongdoing.
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The Wall Street Journal pointed out that Obama has a long history of overusing the word "folks" — oftentimes in inappropriate situations — and that Friday's incident ended up "highlighting the president’s long-standing tortured use of the word." Likewise,
The Washington Post took the time to gather some of the more awkward instances in which Obama's used the weasel word in an article titled "The diverse and varied universe of 'folks', according to President Obama."
Pundits and laypersons alike quickly condemned the phrasing on social media, with some saying it made Obama complicit, and others saying it was just the latest example of Obama's general spinelessness and inability to speak honestly with the public. The incident even spawned a hashtag: #WeTorturedSomeFolks.
In total, Obama used the word "folks" 11 times in his speech, referring to Ebola victims, workers, the general public, critics, the U.S. Border Patrol, and, of course, terrorists and their associates.
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