National Review: Obama is wrong for calling Holocaust "senseless"

[Insula Dei]

The stupidity of the National Review here is that they show themselves incapable of understanding something as basic as the fact that Obama here wasn't saying anything. Take the word 'senseless' itself: what is it supposed to mean in this context? Obviously it means nothing.

Obama here is performing an act that is more symbolical (i.e. 'ritual') than anything else. His use of language is performative, he's literally 'doing something with words'. If you misinterpret that for an attempt at communicating ideas, at an in-depth analysis of nazism for example, you've just shown yourself to be functionally illiterate. A speech like this one is supposed to be meaningless.

Granted, in a political culture where almost every speech has evolved into such a meaningless ritual, into an attempt to say as little as possible, the confusion may be understandable.