Daily Inspiration Quote by Jay Carney

Carney’s line is the kind of Washington sentence that tries to do two opposite jobs at once: respect the referee while lobbying the crowd. The first clause, “it’s simply not for me to evaluate,” is a preemptive disclaimer dressed up as institutional humility. He invokes the independence of a rating agency to signal deference to technocratic authority and to avoid the appearance of political pressure. That’s the visible choreography: hands off, rules-based governance, no meddling.

Then he pivots: “But I will say…” The hedge collapses into a pointed emotional cue. By insisting there was “absolute reason to be anxious,” Carney validates the public’s fear without conceding fault. The repetition - “reason to be anxious” followed by “absolute reason” - works like a drumbeat, amplifying urgency while keeping the language nonspecific enough to dodge accountability. It’s not “we were wrong” or “we failed”; it’s “anxiety was reasonable,” which subtly distributes blame across circumstances, markets, and an implied chorus of other actors.

The context matters: as a White House spokesman, Carney’s job isn’t to litigate process; it’s to manage credibility during a moment when credibility is scarce. Rating agencies sit in an awkward role: quasi-neutral arbiters whose judgments can trigger real political and economic consequences. Carney’s intent is to preserve a posture of respect toward that power while reframing the story as a shared national stress test - everyone worried, and that worry was justified. It’s crisis communications in miniature: restraint as a shield, emotion as a bridge, and ambiguity as the exit route.