Navy Chief of Information RADM John Kirby didn’t write a personal letter to Michael Weinstein, but he might have been thinking about him when he emailed naval officers and told them to stop the “jargon and gibberish,” as well as excessive adjectives.  Criticizing his own service’s communications efforts, RADM Kirby said:

We’ve never met an adjective or adverb we didn’t like.

We don’t “exploit operations in the electromagnetic spectrum.”  We fully exploit them.  We don’t integrate functions; we seamlessly integrate them…

Here’s another example…about the Zumwalt-class destroyer:

“This advanced warship will provide offensive, distributed, and precision fires in support of forces ashore and will provide acredible forward naval presence while operating independently or as an integral part of naval, joint or combined expeditionary strike forces.”

I count 14 adjectives in that sentence, maybe three of which are necessary. If you remove the 11 others, you come up with this:

“This warship will provide fires in support of forces ashore and will provide a naval presence while operating independently or as a part of expeditionary forces.”

That’s still a bit stodgy, but it’s a whole lot easier to understand.

As been highlighted here before, adjective abuse has long been a hallmark of Michael Weinstein’s diatribes.  (In just one example, a 50-word Weinstein press statement was almost one-third unnecessary adjectives.)  Weinstein similarly relies on alliteration, mostly to provide his critics with affectionate appellations. Weinstein once called ChristianFighterPilot.com the “Prince of Problems,” and referred to LtGen Caslen’s assignment as Division Commander as a “trifecta of tragedy.”

Weinstein’s bloviating is so over the top that even his own MRFF staff mocks it, though they presumably still support the message hidden behind the numerous and innumerable adjectives.  When one of their supporters criticized Weinstein’s writing style, though, the MRFF derided and mocked their own donor.  That caused another supporter to second the criticism and take them to task for an “overheated” defense of an “accurate” criticism of Weinstein.  And that’s how they treat people who send them money, nevermind their ideological opposition.  It would seem the MRFF’s blind deference for their king knows no limits.

Similar to what RADM Kirby concluded, for Weinstein

It’s time to put down the adjectives and back away.

With reference to Foreign Policy.

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