Perhaps I am making too much of this, but was anyone else struck with the number of times the word ‘broad’ and ‘broadly’ were used?
Sometimes I wondered if it was due to coaching, in particular when the questioning put a person in a tight spot.
For instance, from the testimony of Bowditch:
Q. And as an organization, in your experience, you don't seek to protect or take care of children who are outside of the congregation?
A. That's a broad statement.
From the testimony of Spinks:
A. It's such a broad, sweeping, ill-informed comment.
And finally from the testimony of Jackson himself:
Q. Would you disagree, then, with anyone who said that the efforts to highlight and deal with child sexual abuse in the Jehovah's Witness church are engaging in apostate lies?
A. I guess that's a broad question, because sometimes those who make these accusations make many other accusations as well.
Of course, the Watchtower is the master of "broad statements" all the time, in particular when they call this matter "apostate-driven lies".