A few days ago, the president made a joke at his own expense by referring to his, the “Republic Party.” He was a guest at a gathering of congressional Democrats. Days earlier, the president made reference to the “Democrat Party.” He was being inarticulate. That in large part is what got him elected to the big job, twice. Americans insist on well-educated presidents. They like the ones who openly display their intelligence but just for a while. Then they want one who despite schooling resembles how they see themselves.<\/p>\n
A host of the top members of the Democratic Party then proceeded to spit nails. When you’re inches behind microphones, as each critic of the president’s articulateness was, spitting nails can damage a lot of expensive electronic equipment. Don’t worry, Fox and CNN carry lots of spares, as well as cable for politicians to hang themselves with.<\/p>\n
A few months ago, word man William Safire used a term in his New York Times Magazine<\/i> column that means turning one kind of word into another, like nouns into verbs, such as “impact.” Don’t recall his word; I wish I was more articulate. Linguists and rhetoricians have technical jargon, just like other engineers.<\/p>\n
We seem to have a cat-and-mouse game, but it is played only on a small section of the greensward. It’s called Misdemeanor, or Minor Offense. The mice are the slights themselves, and the cats are broadcasters with all those microphones. One senator calls another senator a word for well-spoken, which can seem patronizing. A misdemeanor.<\/p>\n
The president forgets the “ic” in Democratic, and the new majority members of Congress — who should be working on Iraq, the economy and the line between liberty and security — claim offense, albeit a minor offense. Yet the business of government is taking place on the rest of the field. And all these people actually spend most of their time running things.<\/p>\n
What we news consumer get stuck with is the “ic” of things. All these groups are responsible. Some Democratic Party members thought Democrat was worth a whine. It wasn’t. The president apologized for common speech. But the vernacular is his gimmick. The media got conflict, which is the easiest thing to record and broadcast. We the people got more of the same, and that still is good enough for us because the bottom hasn’t fallen out.<\/p>\n
Ic. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few days ago, the president made a joke at his own expense by referring to his, the “Republic Party.” He was a guest at a gathering of congressional Democrats. Days earlier, the president made reference to the “Democrat Party.” He was being inarticulate. That in large part is what got him elected to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-of-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/01\/hammered-point-nails-thumb\/","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":0},"title":"Hammered point nails thumb","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, January 10, 2005. Just thought of another way to explain my confusion with a certain kind of column. Or blog now. The discomfort is partly from the frustration of not being able to explain, but mainly because their writers are some of my favorite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4462,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/09\/with-luck-a-four-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":1},"title":"With Luck, a Four-way","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"May I predict, with perverse pleasure, the coming split of both the Republican and Democratic parties. I am not referring to the politics as usual intra- and interparty squabbles. The GOP is as strong as ever, but it's not without the occasional flare. Mid-month and again this week it was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, read the Dr. Seuss children's book \"Green Eggs and Ham\" during his non-filibuster overnight address in the Capitol.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Dr_Seuss_Green_Eggs_and_Ham-215x300.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8126,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2025\/08\/deconstruction-era\/","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":2},"title":"The Deconstruction Era","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"An Editor's Note It's incredible that no wag by now has given our era a name that sticks, goes viral. The announcements and actions coming out of Washington this year \u2014 with no sign of slowing \u2014 qualify for uniqueness. We came close in 2017-2021 to a singular name, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. 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Pollock","date":"October 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here we are, 2010, a week before the national midterm elections. Where does the president appear to support his party and his policies and other endeavors. Not an interview with Katie, Brian or Diane -- or their seconds, even though they're all trained journalists. He didn't drop in on Dave\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/02\/fake-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":4},"title":"Fake Off","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"When one goes for a hit of news, it's amazing how often it's been cut with spin. Not bias, not commentary, but flapdoodle. It's right after shipment where the purveyors can't help but allude to it so it stays. Example 1. Former President Clinton's tactics a few weeks ago while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6064,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2018\/05\/2020-vision-in-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":275,"position":5},"title":"2020 Vision in 2018","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Remember Conner Eldridge? He was the Democratic opponent to Republican Sen. John Boozman in the 2016 general election. Because Republicans are hot stuff these days and it\u2019s tough to tackle an incumbent he lost. He\u2019s back to lawyering. There\u2019s any number of good people like Eldridge who at least for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Arkansas flag","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/68E60AA6-8967-4CE1-BED4-D7B3EF7BBCE2.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}