A WELL-TURNED HACKNEYED PHRASE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (12/19/05)

The Bush Administration’s fancy for the hackneyed phrase reveals its displacement of thought with slogans. Bush’s cliche’d "bring’em on" forecast the insurgency in Iraq. His "cut and run" phrase referred to those people who chose not to "dig in their heels" and repeat their failures for the sake of consistency.

However, the champion of the hackneyed phrase in the Bush Administration is Vice-president Cheney who fervently believes that "if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again" as though the repetition of failure is the path to success. In May 2005 he said that the insurgency was "in the last throes." Apparently, the insurgents’ death rattle failed to account for our 1,650 soldiers and Marines killed since the rise of the insurgency.

Now, he has emulated that master of pseudo-prognosis, General William Westmoreland of Vietnam fame. On the eve of the unexpected Tet offensive by the Viet Cong in January 1968 he said that the war in Vietnam had "turned the corner." The Tet offensive, indeed, turned the corner. As a consequence, we withdrew from Vietnam. On Cheney’s first visit to Iraq since April 2003, he has announced that the war there has "turned the corner." Given the accuracy of his past false prognostications he probably means that we are going to secretly withdraw from Iraq so that no one will notice our absence.

The purpose of hackneyed phrases and cliches is to cover a lack of thought. They sound as though they mean something, but they don’t mean anything at all. Bush and Cheney appear to be saying something, but, in fact, have nothing to say.

Now, President Bush strikes with the ultimate hackneyed phrase, "there are only two options" "victory or defeat," as though there were no other possibilities. Having defined neither victory nor defeat, we don’t even know what he means, suspecting that he hasn’t even "the foggiest idea" of what he means himself. The "either-or" mind is always limited to only two things, both of them usually unacceptable. "Getting down to brass tacks," it indicates the inability to think either inside or "outside the box."

Eric Partridge, in his Dictionary of Cliches, writes that cliches and hackneyed phrases are the products "of the half-baked" mind.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith

BUSH, NIXON, AND JOE McCARTHY

Dana Prom Smith (12/18/05)

My wife, Gretchen, asked me if I thought I were on President Bush’s list of domestic enemies. I said, "I hope so. Someday, it’ll be an honor to’ve been on Bush’s enemies’ list, just like Nixon’s. Some of the finest people I ever knew were on Nixon’s list of enemies and Dirty Joe McCarthy’s."

She asked, "Well, what do you think they’ll find on your email?" "Well, there ain’t no porn if that’s what bugging you. Just a lot of junk from a couple of right-wing, nut bag friends of mine, and my old-fashioned conservative replies about the Republicans’ betrayal of the GOP."

When I read the morning newspapers, watch the news on television, and listen to it on radio, the 17th century political commentator, Thomas Hobbes, comes to mind. He believed that domestic turmoil required governmental repression. He was writing during cruel civil wars in Great Britain. The trouble is that there isn’t any domestic turmoil in the United States. Bush’s excuse is foreign terrorists.

Also, Hobbes had in mind the power of a British monarch who theoretically was accountable only to God, not an elected president who is accountable to American citizens and the United States Constitution. President Bush has already declared that he is in the monarchial tradition by telling us he gets his marching orders from God.

Historically, those who claim they listen only to God and are responsible to Him alone invariably become tyrants. They begin their tyrannies by spying in secret.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2005