"...Or Something Like That"

I was reading the Fall 2009 newsletter of Call-to-Action of Michigan, and came across this short column written by the chapter president Jeanine Daly: (emphases mine)

Next year we have invited Fr. Roy Bourgeois to come to Michigan as part of the “Shattering the Glass Ceiling" tour, supporting women’s ordination. We will also be discussing the American Catholic Council at that conference slated for September 11, 2010 at a site to be determined.

Recently I wrote to Jimmy Carter to acknowledge and support his decision to leave the Southern Baptist Conference after sixty years due to their refusal to accept women as equals. I also corresponded with Bishop Vigneron (it's Archbishop Vigneron!) when he sent a representative to welcome CTA picketers at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, but he didn’t accept my invitation to sit down and discuss the church we both love, but see from very different perspectives. He said he has to be protective of the people in his diocese, or something like that. Bishop Samples (sic) of the Marquette Diocese (where I was raised), did respond when I challenged his refusal to allow Bishop Gumbleton to speak on peace issues. (and what was his response? It was the same as Archbp Vigneron's...or something like that...which is why she doesn't publish it)

What makes her statement doubly funny is that the following quote from Cardinal John Henry Newman appeared on the same page:

"I want a laity not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know the creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity."

Sorry, Cardinal no intelligent laity here...

There's nothing like an "or something like that" to reveal one's insincerity or weaken one's argument. It's like crossing your fingers when making a pledge. For example, imagine the following...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, or something like that."

Or...

"I, Tiger, take you Elin, to be my lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold from this day forward, or something like that."

Or...

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or something like that, so help you God?"

Or...

"I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful, or something like that." (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis)

Or...

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, or something like that."

I wouldn't be surprised if that was Obama's frame of mind when he was sworn in.

Got any other ideas? Put 'em in the combox!