"I was scheduled to give my first official press conference that morning anyway, 'cause I was chairman of the Governors Energy Council and I was making a press conference with regard to energy policy"
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Scranton is doing a politician's favorite dance: insisting the event was always going to happen, even as he quietly admits the calendar itself is part of the strategy. By stressing that he was "scheduled" to give his "first official press conference" anyway, he frames the appearance as duty, not opportunism. It is a preemptive alibi. If anyone suspects he's using the spotlight for ambition, he can point to the bureaucratic inevitability of the role: chairman of the Governors Energy Council, therefore press conference, therefore public attention.
The phrasing is tellingly clotted: "press conference" repeats, "with regard to" pads the sentence, and the folksy "'cause" tries to keep it sounding offhand rather than engineered. That mix is the subtext in miniature. Scranton wants authority (official, chairman, policy) without sounding like he's reaching for it. It's political camouflage: the language of institutional responsibility delivered in a tone that aims to read as ordinary.
Context matters because "energy policy" in the late 20th-century U.S. wasn't a niche portfolio; it was a proxy battlefield for inflation, national security, and executive competence in an era of oil shocks and public distrust. Attaching himself to energy lets Scranton claim technocratic seriousness and future-facing relevance. The "first official" tag hints at a pivot point: a politician stepping onto a larger stage, making sure the audience hears it as governance, not self-promotion.
The phrasing is tellingly clotted: "press conference" repeats, "with regard to" pads the sentence, and the folksy "'cause" tries to keep it sounding offhand rather than engineered. That mix is the subtext in miniature. Scranton wants authority (official, chairman, policy) without sounding like he's reaching for it. It's political camouflage: the language of institutional responsibility delivered in a tone that aims to read as ordinary.
Context matters because "energy policy" in the late 20th-century U.S. wasn't a niche portfolio; it was a proxy battlefield for inflation, national security, and executive competence in an era of oil shocks and public distrust. Attaching himself to energy lets Scranton claim technocratic seriousness and future-facing relevance. The "first official" tag hints at a pivot point: a politician stepping onto a larger stage, making sure the audience hears it as governance, not self-promotion.
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| Topic | Work |
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