A handy manual for this sort of obfuscation is Douglas Murray's The Strange Death of Europe: a masterclass in how xenophobia can take on a respectable shape by sublimating prejudice towards Muslims – and by extension immigrants – into a legitimate cultural anxiety.
For all this deliberate obfuscation, though, House Republicans are now being very clear about one thing: whatever legislation emerges after the Senate and the White House have weighed in, it will almost certainly roll back the Obama Administration's expansion of Medicaid, the federal health-insurance program for poverty-stricken and low-income households.
The Romans used encryption for written language obfuscation for secure messaging.
It eschews continuity of thought for interruption and lucidity for obfuscation; it uses luxurious white space to dramatize one-liners not deep or complex enough to carry a whole page's weight, then crowds the next two-page spread with inscrutably tiny characters we can't make out unless we first scurry off to find a magnifying glass.
And maybe it is this self-confessed respect for language, this delight in its nuance and capacity for obfuscation, that gives Reza her ear for dialogue.
He will criticise the "regulatory maze" - citing 29 regulators for the financial sector alone - for creating opportunities for "waste, duplication, obfuscation and buck-passing".
I was in Oklahoma to write an article for this magazine about the obfuscation and denial, at the industry, regulatory, legislative, and gubernatorial levels, of well-established science demonstrating that the vast majority of Oklahoma's earthquakes are man made, caused by the underground disposal of wastewater from oil and gas drilling.
Iran has demonstrated its aptitude for diplomatic double talk, its gift for obfuscation and delay.
Given the fever pitch of late-night machinations it feels as if an agreement is doomed to succeed in spite of the Ayatollah's penchant for obfuscation and demands for incessant concessions.
