I love it when the phrase "hortatory subjunctive" is inserted in to Congressional record. It's almost as good as "vituperation toxicity."
Lorita Doan testified before Waxman's Oversight Committee today that it was all just a mixed up grammatical tense when she suggested that perhaps her employees might be punished for cooperating with investigators.
Here's what she said:
Until extensive rehabilitation of their performance occurs, they will not be getting promoted and will not be getting bonuses or special awards or anything of that nature.
She didn't mean that as a threat, or anything, see? She just got her tenses wrong and used the hortatory subjunctive, and really didn't mean anything bad by it. TPMmuckraker picks it up from there:
Son of a Latin teacher, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) disagreed. He called her statement the common "future" tense. He also spotted a connection between her grammatical defense and an accusation that she encouraged her employees to help out Republican Congressional races. At a presentation given by Karl Roves' deputy she asked her GSA employess: "How can we help our employees candidates?" [sic: error in TPM transcription]
Watch it:
For more fun with Ms. Doan, you can see full coverage of the hearing at the Speaker's blog, The Gavel.