"Well, changes have been made. The question is whether we've done enough by way of change"
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“Changes have been made” is the kind of phrase lawyers and institutions reach for when they want credit without committing to anything measurable. Ben-Veniste immediately punctures that self-satisfaction with the follow-up: “The question is whether we’ve done enough.” The construction does two jobs at once. First, it acknowledges movement - a necessary concession in any post-crisis setting where the public demands proof of response. Then it yanks the comfort away, reframing the discussion from optics to adequacy.
As a lawyer, Ben-Veniste is working in the territory of accountability: not whether action occurred, but whether action meets the standard implied by harm. That’s the subtext. Change is cheap; sufficiency is expensive. “Enough” smuggles in a moral and procedural benchmark without naming it, which is precisely why it lands. It forces listeners to supply the missing metric: enough to prevent recurrence, enough to restore trust, enough to match the scale of failure.
The passive voice in the first sentence (“have been made”) is not accidental. It blurs authorship, a familiar institutional maneuver when responsibility is politically toxic. The second sentence restores agency indirectly by turning the audience into a jury. Ben-Veniste’s intent is to keep the record open: reforms aren’t a box to tick, they’re a claim to be tested. In moments when commissions are formed and reports are issued, this is the line that refuses closure.
As a lawyer, Ben-Veniste is working in the territory of accountability: not whether action occurred, but whether action meets the standard implied by harm. That’s the subtext. Change is cheap; sufficiency is expensive. “Enough” smuggles in a moral and procedural benchmark without naming it, which is precisely why it lands. It forces listeners to supply the missing metric: enough to prevent recurrence, enough to restore trust, enough to match the scale of failure.
The passive voice in the first sentence (“have been made”) is not accidental. It blurs authorship, a familiar institutional maneuver when responsibility is politically toxic. The second sentence restores agency indirectly by turning the audience into a jury. Ben-Veniste’s intent is to keep the record open: reforms aren’t a box to tick, they’re a claim to be tested. In moments when commissions are formed and reports are issued, this is the line that refuses closure.
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| Topic | Change |
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