“Giambi said he had not read the San Francisco Chronicle story, which cited transcripts of his grand jury testimony, and he would not say whether the newspaper’s report was accurate.”
- from The New York Times

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All right, once a steroid-infused musclehead manages to use a new dodge effectively, it’s fair to say that it’s gone mainstream. It’s a meme. It’s “out there.” It’s “a thing.”

President Bush has been the master of the “I haven’t read that” workaround, and it never fails to both a) work, and b) provide a few low-hanging punchlines for lazy comedy writers. It is brilliant, though - it allows you to deny what you want without specifically contradicting the hard evidence against you.

Bush has used it so frequently that there’s little doubt that history will credit him with creating it. But there’s still a lot more we can do with it:

Courtrooms: “Your honor, while I haven’t read the specific charges against me, let me say that what I’ve heard sounds like a pack of lies.”

Weddings: “I will be true, honest, faithful and supportive within my understanding of those terms, though I would note that I haven’t looked over the actual vows. With that in mind… I do.”

Blurbs: “Though I haven’t actually read Brian’s new book, I certainly consider him capable of writing the most significant American novel of the last twenty years.”

Write some yourselves! Use historical examples! [Exodus: “Though I have not yet read the Ten Commandments, it is consistent with my understanding of them to build this golden calf…”] This is the sort of game that Comments boxes were created for.

The possibilities are limitless, and all it takes is a small suspension of disbelief; that the person in question hasn’t actually read the incredibly significant document about themselves that everyone is asking them about. After you’ve swallowed that, the rest goes down easy.