Language to mask failure

As you know, I'm an English teacher who likes our language. I was reminded once again of the power of words the other day. This time it has to do with politics.


The news was about Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. According to internet reports, they have dropped the word 'stimulus' from their vocabulary. This was reported shortly before President Obama's jobs speech before a joint session of Congress. He proposed another hugely expensive stimulus bill . . . oops, it's now being called a "jobs plan" much like his his $830 billion 2009 economic stimulus package. And we all know how lovely that turned out to be.


But since that previous program was so ineffective and ruinously expensive, a change in vocabulary was necessary. Democrats are now being careful to frame their job-creation agenda in language excluding references to that dreaded word "stimulus," even though their favored policies for ending the deepest recession since the Great Depression are largely the same--throw money at the problem.


The phrases used now will make people forget earlier failure, so get ready for new, uplifting language. It will now be "job creation" and "Make it in America" in lieu of "Recovery Act." Gee, I feel better about it already.


You know there's failure in the air when language has to change rather than the policies. The Democrats are wedded to the idea that money solves all problems. I hope this lesson in language wakes up the American people to the Democrats' lack of good ideas to solve our economic problems. I'm certainly not happy with the Republicans, but I think they have better plans to reduce our bloated government and return economic decisions to the people.

Liberals and their word choices

As an English teacher, I love words—how they are used and misused. A recent example comes from a smart man in the Senate, John Kerry. At least, he tells us he’s smart.

He had a town hall meeting the other day. Kerry had to offer an apology to a woman who was there. But check out what the apology was for and what it says about uber-liberals and their word choices.

The senator apologized to one woman who had a complaint against him. She claimed he had called her a Neanderthal for not believing in global warming. Now, watch how Kerry got out of this. He said he was referring generally to those who do not believe in the science of global warming and not to the one woman in particular.

OK, let’s review this apology. Kerry said he was not specifically accusing this one woman. Instead, he was smearing an entire group of people with this negative term, “Neanderthal.” Think about what the term implies—stupid, semi-human, backward, doomed to die out, ugly, anti-intellectual. There's a word with heavy negative connotations. It ranks right up there with "fascist" and "racist."

Now, consider the implications of what he said. He thinks it is OK to attack a huge number of serious people and smear them even if they have scientific backgrounds and have looked long and hard at the issue of global warming. But he’s sensitive to a single person standing in front of him.

Haven’t we heard that before, coming out of the mouth of bigots? “Hey, when I bad-mouthed that entire group of people because of their ethnicity or religion, I didn’t mean you.” Sure, that really works. The individual is not comforted one bit. “Some of my best friends are . . .” just doesn't cut it.

But that’s where we are today. People like Kerry think they are open-minded and tolerant. Well, maybe for a solitary person they are dealing with. But they have no problem attacking and smearing an entire group—“Christians are stupid,” “Conservatives want people to die,” “Those against same-sex marriage are bigots,” etc. I’m hoping we see behind these verbal barrages and realize how intolerant they really are.