Americans have perfected the art of bullshitting confidently. I discovered that when I worked for an American company and use to attend meetings where American colleagues would take up the time to talk about nothing and do it with such conviction that sometimes I had to pinch myself just to be sure I wasn't daydreaming. Interestingly, nobody would challenge said individual because of the confidence they exuded. However later on around the water cooler, there would be discussions about what was actually said and a unanimous consensus would be reached that the colleague had said much ado about nothing.
Later on, when I lived in the States I realised that bullshitting confidently is part of the American DNA. An unedifying consequence of this is the inability to tell it like it is - there's a tendency to put a positive spin on everything for example, when a well known fast food chain announced they were opening more outlets, the subsequent job creation was labelled manufacturing instead of service. The Republican nominee for Vice President spun her foreign policy experience to include trips to Iraq, Ireland and Russia whereas the actuality was she can see Russia from Alaska and she could see Iraq when she visited the Alaskan National Guard at a border crossing in Kuwait. Her so called trip to Ireland was no more than a refueling stopover. The White House likes to talk of victory in Iraq despite the widely respected General Petraeus' opinions to the contrary. And who can forget Dubya's premature Iraq Mission Accomplished proclamation on the deck of US carrier in May 2003.
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