10
Jul
Throw These Terms Under The Bus
After the 2008 election, I will support any President who pushes to have fines attached to the usage of the following phrases:
flip-flop
throw under the bus
Sister Souljah moment
Twenty minutes of Morning Joe and listening to the bobbleheads and I am ready to kick puppies. You can add your own annoying phrases that should be banned.
*** Update ***
How did I forget “slap in the face?”
Gizzi
How does “practicing partisan poilitics” grab ya ?
stevie314159
Don’t forget:
slap in the face
Jake
How about the always annoying “Senator Joe Lieberman”? I’ve been instinctively cringing whenever I hear that phrase of late.
Cathy D
“....but how will it play in Scranton?”
lilysmom
Calling the US the Homeland. Sounds like a fucking Goebbles term and it drives me bananas.
Elitist
Right to Life
Huntly
I have been curious lately, before 2004 what term was used to indicate what is now called “flip-flop?” I can’t imagine no one ever changed positions before Kerry did, but that phrase has become so ubiquitous that anything before has been scrubbed from my conscience.
EarBucket
Huntly—”waffling,” I believe, was the term of choice. I know the GOP stuck it to Clinton in 1992.
Jeffrey Kramer
“He’s comfortable in his own skin.”
Catpain Haddock
...would like to have a beer with…
Gizzi
How does “practicing partisan politics” grab ya ?
Every time I hear that, I want to hurl an overripe tomato in Joe LIEberman’s general direction.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
“Republican moderates” – There aren’t any.
pinola
Gizzi: Hey, good tomatoes are hard to find these days! Don’t waste it! Find a good cow patty.
Adrienne
Hey Huntly:
Before Kerry they called it triangulation. But Rovian politics required something shorter and more accessible to low info voters so it could stick. You know, they had to dumb it down for the stoopids!
jake
MAVERICK
cleek
“far left”, unless you’re talking about actual commies or something like the Black Bloc.
cleek
MAVERICK
yes, and “war hero”
Scott H
Ethnic cleansing.
‘Cause if you say “genocide” you’re expected to do something about it.
gbear
The word that seemed to just pop up for me about 6 years ago was ‘robust’. It seemed like everyone was describing everything as ‘robust’. Something about the sound of the word just grated on me. Maybe it was that Norm Coleman couldn’t complete a sentence without using it. Maybe because it was so often used when the word ‘tanking’ was more appropriate. Whatever, no one is finding reasons to use the word anymore.
RSA
I’m tired of “reach across the aisle”, “heartland”, and “swiftboating”.
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
“on the table”
“rock star” to refer to anyone not engaged in the actual playing of actual music.
“bipartisan”
“Andrea Mitchell”
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
Also, not a term, but any chowderhead who refers to a bill as needing 60 votes to pass the Senate is dispatched immediately to remedial junior high civics.
Scott H
Oh, I second “bipartisan.” There’s partisan, there’s (some better word for) non-partisan, and then there’s the mendacious, avaricious, self-serving conspiracy to hose the American people once again (which would be bipartisan).
Kirk Norton
I agree with “homeland.” Let’s just call it the Fatherland and be done with it.
Dave
Wow. Just wow.
cleek
a.k.a. “the entire staff @ NPR”
Wilfred
Homeland!! Never. It is the lamest, most pathetically stupid gift that Bush ever gave the (formerly known as) America:
God Bless Homelandia
Land of my home
It’s my Homeland,
and you know, man
That it’s where I really want to be.
p.a.
In England, with Liberal, Conservative and Labour Parties, would it be ‘tripartisan’? And on the multi-party continent, ‘polypartisan’?
Also interesting (tangentally), the divergent meanings of Liberal/Conservative in Europe vs. the US, and the change in what passes for conservatism (know-nothing lunacy) today.
Keith
“the tools they need” (although given today’s climate “the tools they are” should be allowed)
Paul L.
Social Justice
Working Families
Reproductive Freedom/rights
Windfall profits
Assault Weapons
gbear
Special Rights
Dan
“should he apologize?”
tessellated
I nominate “play the card”
It’s a poisonous and over-used phrase that substitutes lazy gamesmanship for any real analysis. It should be a firing offense.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
“white working class”
tessellated
Hmm. The underscores seem to have disappeared from my post above. The annoying phrase should be:
“Play the XXXX card”
CFisher
Adding the ‘-gate’ suffix to any scandal.
‘Bill Kristol’
‘Maureen Dowd’
Scott H
Yeah. “Homeland” very nearly rivals Richard Nixon’s design for the “White House Guard” uniforms. Just try googling for an image. That’s a bit of history that needed disappearing. So, never mind, don’t google – you might find a photo, and I can’t be responsible.
A little more subtle, using conservative when reactionary is wanting, and Christian instead of Pauline.
Atlliberal
“Reagan Democrats” along with “white working people”
Rosali
grow the economy
chiggins
“Unprecedented”.
(unless of course the thing is question really hasn’t ever happened before.)
“Contractors”.
They’re mercenaries. Call ‘em what they are, then see how America feels about having 10’s of thousands of ‘em in Iraq, on our payroll. Better still, call ‘em what they are and see how America feels about the possibility of them coming to your town in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
redwards95
“President Bush”
“Karl Rove”
“Vice President Cheney”
“statistical dead heat”
“giving comfort to our enemies”
“appeasing”
“gas tax holiday”
“35 years of experience”
“command in chief threshold”
“foreign policy credentials”
“yes we can”
“change”
Chris Johnson
They should be forced to call Homeland the ‘Rodina’, from the original Soviet :)
In Soviet Russia, Homeland collapses for you!
Garrigus Carraig
I too can’t believe how quickly the talking heads have adopted “homeland”. It’s like a fascist takeover is being plotted and everyone is in on it except me. “Homeland”? Srsly?
Although I would like to get rid of the DHS wholesale, I can live with changing its name at 12:05 on 20 January. Or this afternoon.
Laura W
Bittergate
Former Presidential Candidate and MSNBC Political Analyst, Pat Buchannan
Working Class Whites
Soccer Moms
Disaffected Clinton Voters
Obama/Clinton Dream Ticket
I’m proud to say that ever since Scarborough went after Maddow on July 3, was it, on the Race faux-show, I have been Morning Joe clean and sober! It’s easier than I thought. Maybe he’s on vacation this week since he has mercifully not appeared on Race all week. I am so Joe-Free that I do not even know if he is on vacation. I honestly find my waking up hours far more relaxed with much less screaming at the tee vee and kicking my cats. (Bad joke. No cat kicking. Or not intentionally.)
JoyceH
It’s new just this season, but I’m already sick of all the bloviating about whether or not an endorsement is ‘full-throated’ enough.
MH
Homeland 100% needs to go. That was creepy as fuck back in 2001.
Second on “Reagan democrats” and “under the bus”.
I’ll add “fix social security” to the pile.
Bootlegger
Surrender in Iraq
Surrender to terrorists
Wouldn’t this be the first one-sided surrender in history? Unless of course they actually mean that The Whippersnapper intends to have General Petreus actually surreneder his army to bin-Ladin.
It’s a change election
EL
I would have added “speaking truth to power,” but that one finally seems to be fading.
fuddmain
“My friends”
Focality
Don’t forget, “Stab in the back.”
jake
Family Values is long overdue for a trip to the scrap heap.
Sanctity of marriage.
[Fill in the blank]gate.
Comparing any current or future conflict to WWII unless Germany has in fact invaded Poland..
Ditto Hitler/Nazis.
rjv
“Move to the center”
MH
Oh my god, how did we forget “elitist”?
b-psycho
While we’re at it, how ‘bout banning “middle-class” as a description during policy talk?
It obscures way more than it describes. One cannot have a category that includes both a household that’s merely two paychecks away from being on the street instead of one, and puffy suburbanites with a huge house & two-car garage bitching about the cost to fill up their SUVs, without that category being completely meaningless. The lower end of that frankenclass might as well be working-poor (rhetorical question break: how come no one talks about the poor in this context? Yeah, the poor, remember them? Those people that actually fucking need help?). As for the higher end, honestly fuck them. This completely artificial style of living that has been declared The American Way ignorant of any semblance of long-term thought needs to go away, or we’re all going to suffer for it, and while I’d rather the brunt of the damage go towards the corporate interests that dragged us along so far, if achieving a more reasonable standard requires some soccer moms to cry in the process, then so be it.
plus C
This.
Also:
“The gloves are off”
“Largest __ in history”
“Activist judges”
Pasota
This is more of preemptive strike at one that I predict we will be hearing more of:
“thumbing [its/his/their] nose at”
This can now almost be called a time-honored justification for any sort of military mayhem, up to and including war, that the U.S. might care to dish out.
And, oh yeah, “Commander-in-Chief” when immediately preceded by the word our.
sidereal
Any blogger who uses ‘blood and treasure’, ‘klieg lights’, or ‘Sturm und Drang’ (bonus points for ignoring the German capitalization scheme) should be sent to Guantanamo. Everyone knows they saw it on some other blog, googled it, and now want to pretend like it’s a term they’ve been using their whole life.
plus C
Oh, and “Democratic congress” for a 49-49-2 senate and with Bush as the de facto leader of both chambers.
tom.a
I would to add “it’s a perfect storm of ‘X’” to that list, haven’t heard it lately but all through the primary I heard it non stop.
marge
You forgot “carry water for…”
marge
And “folks”. I am not folks, I am a person, a citizen of the United States, a women. I don’t even know any folks and these politicians certainly don’t know me. It is such a disrespectful way of describing who the American people are. I have no problem with folk dancing or folk art but folk voters? no way.
caune
Attack
anytime someone expresses a contrary opinion the press calls it an attack..ahhhh
datacine
To keep your references correct it’s Sista Soulja not Sister
Soylent Green
Hero.
Applied to you if you do your job as trained, get yourself killed (even resulting from your own mistake), or serve in the military in any capacity.
D-Chance.
Obama didn’t throw Hillary under the bus… but he did drive off without her last night.
YellowJournalism
“suicide bomber”
“Hollywood liberals”
“Jesse Jackson”
“MSM”
“wave” of anything
UncleCharlie
While we are busy eliminating catchphrases, can we mercifully eliminate ‘I tip my hat’ or ‘I tip my cap’ from any and all sports interviews forever?
Jon
Forgetting “slap in the face” is a slap in the face to “slap in the face.”
Jon
No, it’s Sister Souljah, like so.
Tax Analyst
“the tools they need” (although given today’s climate “the tools they are” should be allowed)
That phrase oughtta be “the tools they be“, or alternatively, “What tools these mortals be”.
Apologies to Shakespeare
LanceThruster
“Wake-up call”
Hedley Lamarr
“Chilling Effect” and the use of “Issue” instead of “Problem”
Soylent Green
“Fair and balanced.”
Hedley Lamarr
I forgot “Absolutely” instead of “Yes”
JenJen
“Resonate.” “Resonating?” “Resonates.” “Resonate?”
Followed/proceeded closely by word, “Voter.”
Balloon Juice
[...] Throw These Terms Under The Bus [...]
Balloon Juice
[...] Throw These Terms Under The Bus [...]
MissLaura
I did a post on terms I wanted to see gone a little while back. My two favorites:
“__________ has died.” (innocence/the Constitution/democracy)
“Third rail of American politics.”
t.brown
war on terror
centrist
no spin zone
rovian
karl rove
datacine
To keep your references correct it’s Sista Soulja not Sister
No, it’s Sister Souljah, like so.
thanks for the correction
Anonymous
My nominations for terms to throw under the bus:
tsunami (except for the real thing)
"photoshop" as a verb
9/11
christian nation (what is this, a new Iran?)
"swiftboat" as a verb
"president bush" (pre-emptive pending his removal from power)
pre-emptive
and last but not least…. Under the Bus!