"If I had said, 'We're going to war,' or 'We're sending weapons,' that would have been illegal."
"So I changed my rhetoric."
"I proposed the Lease Bill. I told Congress and the American people that this was neither an act of war nor a gift."
"It's like if my neighbor's house was on fire, and I lent him my garden hose to put it out. When the fire's out, he'll give me the hose back."
"You see, the essence of the matter didn't change at all. The weapons still got sent, and the Germans still got bombed."
"But by redefining the action, by changing the words used to describe it, I turned something that was originally illegal into something legal."
"That is how you control reality by controlling the discourse."
"Now, back to the present."
Roosevelt directed Leo's gaze to the rejected document.
"Finch is objecting because, within the existing fiscal discourse, you've defined these projects as 'expenditures'."
