Columbia Mayor Bob Coble seems to have set a new standard for caution and qualification in his statement in today's story about the city's long-standing, inexcusable inability to keep its books straight (today, we learned, it has sometimes paid the same bill — including to its external auditor brought in to deal with the mess — two and even three times).
Here's what the mayor said:
"With the new hires and new procedures, hopefully we feel confident that
we are on the way to getting the very best finance department we can."
we are on the way to getting the very best finance department we can."
He couldn't just say, "We've solved the problem," because among other things, Mayor Bob is a truthful man. But let's count the qualifications, counting backwards:
- "the best finance department we can" — Not the best, just the best we can get.
- "we are on the way to getting" — He's not gonna claim we're there.
- "confident" — He doesn't even know that we're on the way; he's just "confident" that we are.
- "feel" — OK, he doesn't know we're confident, but he feels that we are.
- "hopefully" — Actually, he's not even sure that we feel that way; he just hopes that we do.
I don't know about you, but I'm impressed. No one can hedge like our Mayor Bob.
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Mayor Bob, master of UNqualification.
Maybe Mayor Bob perhaps has, sort of, a way with words.
Well, I think we just might at some point in the future feel like we hope that he does….
You see? I just can’t do it. Mayor Bob is the master. I bow my head in awe.
“With the new hires and new procedures, hopefully we feel confident that we are on the way to getting the very best finance department we can.”
What an eccentric performance…..
As a small business owner I can account for every penny I spend. Maybe I should lend the city my Quickbooks Pro program?
Well it’s good to see Mayor Bob is good at one thing, maybe he should have become an author instead a mayor. You can’t spell “suck” without Coble or Austin.
There is nothing that Coble or Austin can do to lose their jobs, short of murder, on video, with the Pope as a witness.
Every warning sign pointing to criminality in financial matters has been sent…yet no one ever entertains the thought that money has gone astray in an illegal fashion.
It simply is not logical that money has not been stolen.
There is no hope that South Carolina will ever be anything other than a backwater…a sure sign of this is that the capital city can be operated in this fashion…in broad daylight, with everyone looking on. If we are in fact given the government we deserve, then we, as a people, suck..
Columbia does not need a strong mayor system it needs a strong man(or woman) as mayor
Weak men always blame the system. Coble and Austin are weak…and are incapable of searching for, and finding the truth.
The system is not the problem…the men at the top are.
Coble is peddling influence, Austin in incompetent.
Why doesn’t Bob Coble publish a list of all these “vital projects” he is trying to fund with TARP bailout money?
Why doesn’t The State newspaper send a reporter to obtain the list, the cost, the priorities, and publish it on the front page?
mayor said:
“With the new hires and new procedures, hopefully we feel confident that we are on the way to getting the very best finance department we can.” beautiful thought
Christena
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