There are misunderstandings and there are misunderstandings that involve a knife and tape and an ex-partner’s home, and the former Democratic congressional candidate described in Fox News’s top headlines today as being “accused of storming into ex’s home with knife, tape” and calling it a “misunderstanding” appears to have encountered a situation where the word misunderstanding is doing more work than it was designed to handle.
Fox News’s Friday top headlines list, confirmed today, includes the item “CONSENT DISPUTE: Former Dem candidate accused of storming into ex’s home with knife, tape, blames ‘misunderstanding,'” which is the headline that arrives when the candidate’s legal team and the candidate’s ex-partner have given the same incident two different names. The candidate’s name has not yet been confirmed from the Fox News headline snippet, which describes him only as a “former Dem candidate,” which is the category of person whose name surfaces within the news cycle of the initial report.
The specific items listed in the Fox News headline, a knife and tape, are items whose combination in the context of entering an ex-partner’s home without invitation would conventionally be described not as a misunderstanding but as a set of facts, and whose description as a misunderstanding suggests the candidate’s legal strategy is to argue that the intent behind the knife and tape was misconstrued rather than that the knife and tape were not present. This is the defense that requires the most from the word misunderstanding.
Democratic candidates have had a significant week. Graham Platner dropped out of the Maine Senate race. The Michigan progressive primary candidate’s past statements are being reviewed by the Republican National Congressional Committee. Bernie Sanders’s previous endorsee had a Nazi tattoo. Bernie has since issued a new endorsement. A former candidate stormed an ex’s home with a knife and tape and called it a misunderstanding.
The candidate has not been identified yet in the snippet. His identification will presumably follow. The misunderstanding framing will presumably follow his identification.
When a former candidate calls storming an ex’s home with a knife and tape a misunderstanding, which part of it was misunderstood?
Sources
Fox News: Top headlines July 17
Fox News: Fmr Arizona Dem candidate accused of storming into ex’s home with knife, tape, blames ‘misunderstanding’
