The World of Obama — A Glossary - By Victor Davis Hanson

The World of Obama — A Glossary - By Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner - National Review Online

The World of Obama — A Glossary. By Victor Davis Hanson November 2, 2010 ACORN: Never heard of it Arizona: Resembles 1930s Italy beer summit: Where investigating an apparent break-in is defined as acting “stupidly” bipartisan: A senator with a 97 percent partisan voting record Boehner, John: Is to be blamed bow: Correct greeting for sheiks; for the Queen, an iPod is appropriate BP: Company requiring a boot on its neck to make it fork over $10 billion, or $15 billion — or why not $20 billion? campaign finance reform: Applies to “them” capital-gains taxes: Increase them even if that brings in less revenue (it’s the punishment, stupid) Chamber of Commerce: Is really to be blamed Chicago community organizer: Best preparation for the Oval Office Chrysler creditor: To the back of the line Churchill: Eccentric 19th-century colonialist civility: Requires demonizing George W. Bush, while deifying Barack Obama comprehensive health-care reform: Entails astronomical rises in private health-insurance premiums comprehensive immigration reform: Blanket amnesty corpsman: One who carries corpses Costa del Sol: A cut-rate getaway spot for recession vacationing cowards: Won’t talk nonstop about race czar: Agency director subject neither to confirmation hearings nor to audit divisive: Opposing Barack Obama doctors: Medical professionals liable to cut off your limbs and rip out your tonsils needlessly for profit elections: Only sometimes have consequences enemy: An American who opposes illegal immigration; sometimes mistakenly used of combatants fighting Americans energy: To be capped and traded rather than produced exceptional: Old, inaccurate description of the United States faces: As in “get in their” filibuster: Archaic and obstructionist parliamentary maneuver except when used to stop reactionary appointments Fox News: Is really, really to be blamed George W. Bush: Is really, really, really to be blamed get out the vote: Dangerous except when applied to minority blocs golf: Sign of aristocratic disdain that can nevertheless be appropriately used to recharge exhausted liberal batteries green jobs: Massive subsidies to friendly progressive enterprises Ground Zero Mosque: No such thing Guantanamo Bay: Virtually closed guns: You cling to them, we bring them to a knife fight “hope and change”: An inspiring slogan that is better than the facts or the truth ice cream: Eating it will get your children deported inheritance taxes: Reason to die before 2011 Iraq: Now the good bad war jobs: Always potentially saved, never actually lost KSM: Virtually tried and convicted in a New York federal court Las Vegas: Where enemies of the people go to spend their ill-gotten gains Latinos: Group of Americans who must punish enemies of the people at the polls laws: Suggestions that may be followed in cases of social utility Limbaugh, Rush: Is really, really, really, really to be blamed “make no mistake about it”: As enlightening as “let me be perfectly clear” Martha’s Vineyard: Another populist recession-era getaway place minorities: “They’re counting on your silence. They’re counting on your amnesia. They’re counting on your apathy.” money: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough” NASA: A social bureau dedicated to Islamic outreach “never waste a crisis”: Recessions are not so bad after all outliers: Formerly known as rogue nations polarization: Rising opposition to liberalism Predators: Bush started them progressive: Alternative to liberal, used when the latter polls badly prolonged detention: Acceptable, as opposed to indeterminate detention radical Islam: A construct of the paranoid Right redistributive change: What the Supreme Court needs to work toward renditions: Ongoing Bush felonies now impossible to stop Republicans: Cannot sit in the front seat reset button: Treating our friends as neutrals and our enemies as friends SEIU: A social-services organization shovel-ready: Neither ready nor involving shovels smoking: Does not occur if it occurs in the Rose Garden stimulus: Borrowing another trillion dollars with no plan for paying it back tax: Reclaiming public money that was taken by greedy and selfish private citizens Tea Party: Extremist anti-government types in the incendiary tradition of Jefferson; preferably called “tea-baggers” terrorism: A man-caused disaster addressed by overseas contingency operations “they”: Wealthy evil manipulators who use their obscene profits to vacation in places like Las Vegas times of economic uncertainty: A signal that you are about to be called a racist tribunals: Bush started those too $250,000: Above that bad, below good undisclosed: Description of anonymous opposition campaign contributors unemployed: Those whose jobs were lost under Bush Van Jones: Even the name was made up wealth: To be spread rather than created white person: Often “typical” and “bitter” with “untrained ears,” and likely to “cling” to religion and guns; in short, full of “antipathy” working across the aisle: Offering huge earmarks or presidential appointments in return for a single Republican legislative vote “yes, we can”: Inspiring slogan that went out of use during the summer of 2009