Prominent Republicans have this thing for pounding their message home with certain stock phrases, repeated over and over and again — from the elaborate sloganized banners that the Bushites erect behind the decider-in-chief whenever he gives a speech, to the constant use of phrases like “cut and run” and “up or down vote”. It’s annoying, to say the least.
But two of their stock phrases are really grating on me recently: “Mistakes were made”, and the “Democrat Party”.
It’s impossible to deny that Iraq has gone to hell under the Bush’s watch these days, but it’s apparently still possible to evade responsibility for it. This is done by acknowledging that there are mistakes out there, floating around like a cloud of escaped balloons, but not really attaching them to anyone. We aren’t told who made the mistakes, but we are to understand that it is emphatically not the people telling us that they happened.
By far the most annoying example of this so far is something that “Democratic” senator Joe Lieberman said recently to the New Yorker:
So why do I trust President Bush in spite of the mistakes that were made, consequential mistakes? Because having watched him, having talked to him, I believe that he understands the life-and-death struggle we are in with the most deadly and unconventional enemy, Islamic extremism. And that he has shown himself, notwithstanding all these mistakes, willing to go forward with what he believes is right for the security of the country, regardless of what it has done to his popularity.
So there were mistakes. Consequential mistakes. That were made. And Bush might have been in the same room where these mistakes were happening. He was fencing with the terrorists, maybe, and he looked over his shoulder and saw a suspicious crowd of mistakes taking place, but was powerless to stop them because of all the terrorist-smiting that he was doing. Nevertheless, he is determined to soldier on. That’s what people must do when mistakes are made as a direct result of orders that were given under the auspices of a policy that was formulated.
So if a guy’s ever caught cheating on his wife, say, he could tell her: “Yes, intercourse with someone other than you may have taken place. Ejaculation could have resulted. And I take full responsibility for this unfortunate set of circumstances, as they occurred under my watch.”
Bah.
“The Democrat Party” thing is possibly worse, though it’s harder to pinpoint why. Republicans have been trotting this one out for a while, most recently when Bush used it to dismantle some conciliatory comments he made during his State of the Union address. The implication is that this party is not really democrat_ic_, despite its name — but what’s really annoying is that it’s an obvious term of disrespect. It’s the Democratic Party, it’s always been the Democratic Party, and anyone who says Democrat Party is just needling the opposition. It’s childish and spiteful. I think Josh Marshall says it best:
The whole issue of ‘Democrat’ party — other than as an example of Republican infantilism — is an issue of respect or rather intentional and repeated expression of disrespect as a means of asserting dominance.
So I propose that from now on Democrats in congress should refer to their Republican colleagues as Shmoopicans. As in: “I defer to my esteemed Shmoopican colleague from the great state of Kansas.” Or: “My friend, the Shmoopican senator from Alabama, has the floor.”
I realize that this proposal does nothing to elevate the debate. But I’m sure it would be fun.