I'm waiting for "binders full of big birds". Maybe some cartoonist has already done it. It could be a fanciful tale about Romney firing Big Bird because Big Bird is overpaid, but there are binders full of resumes of big bird wannabes.
"Democratic operatives with bylines" continue to pump these binder and big bird memes, but they seem like very weak tea to me.
If Obama had said "binders full of women" it would be okay. A turn of phrase in that case would not have been "wince-inducing" to the left. It would not have been "emblematic of a larger issue". It would have been "nothing to see here, move along".
Obama frequently turns phrases that are "not optimal". The right notices them. The left ignores them.
Turns of phrase, gaffes, may be good for a few raised eyebrows and laughs, but who chooses among candidates that way? Well, I guess the meme-pumpers are hoping to influence the "undecideds," whoever they may be, whatever they may be undecided about.
Maybe a vague sense that somebody said something bad will be enough to sway
the button they hit on election day.
I think there may be some value there generally, in that people feel they get a peek inside a candidate's head when he strays from the script.
ReplyDeleteIt may also matter how gaffes are characterized. GWB's hundreds were mostly of the cute/dumb variety, where Romney's relatively few are being cast as something more nefarious.
As to Big Bird and binders...I'm with you.
I must admit that I follow this gossipy style-stuff as much as the next person. I think slips of tongue are prized as Freudian slips that show the real person beneath the cultivated image. I just think they only take you so far.
ReplyDelete