From: Jasper
Date: 10/26/01
Time: 2:11:06 PM
Miss Marple,
Marcia relies on the old adage: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."
Most people can't tell the difference and don't want to know the difference. All thy want is an EXCUSE to see what they want to see. Give them the excuse and they will use what they can in what you say and fill in what they must with the all-purpose logic glue called "Somehow".
My epiphany on this subject came at Fort Campbell, KY when our company's personnel records from overseas failed to arrive in The World with our brigade. In reconstructing the records my company's new first sergeant learned about my outrageous test scores (the excuse). The next day I happened to be scheduled to go before a promotion board consisting of two officers and the first sergeant.
This wasn't one of my better days. I was not mentally alert and I didn't know the answers to half of the things they asked my, anyway. So, knowing full well that I couldn't dazzle them with brilliance, I decided to see what I could do with bullshit.
Obviously, I didn't think it would work, but after the interview the first sergeant caught up with me and told me that I got a perfect score. Then he asked me if I would join some kind of advisory panel. I almost hurt myself trying not to laugh. I tried to say something cool, but it came out so screwed up I couldn't make sense of my own words. By the time I was finished I had no idea of what I was trying to say in the first place. But SOMEHOW, it truly seemed to make sense to him.
The first sergeant looked at me with something akin to awe. I could see the flip side of what was going on with him and "his man" (me) just as clearly as if I had said really said something noteworthy but I wasn't one of his men when and said, "That was deep!"
I remember thinking; it sure was! --Jasper