Obama: Please (temporarily) remove these words from your vocabulary
Much like Rapunzel, Barack Obama seems to have spent much of his life in an ivory tower. I’m beginning to think Rev Wright is less of a problem for connecting with blue-collar voters than his propensity to use ten-dollar words when anything beyond a $2.50 word is incomprehensible to those without a college education. (That’s not meant to sound obnoxious; vocabulary is tied to your educational level, not your innate intelligence or personal worth)
And Hillary’s 100% right that the GOP’s characterization of Democratic candidates as out-of-touch elitists has led to Dems’ downfall on more than one occasion in recent presidential contest history. And with a strong undercurrent of racism that stuffs black people into an impossible box (too uneducated and they’re worthless n-words, and too educated and they’re uppity), Obama especially has to tread this line very, very carefully. (His cost of arugula and gun- and religion-clinging comments have probably already ensconced him in the latter category in the minds of many voters)
I’ve seen or read a number of statements by Obama that use language that flies over the heads of the less-educated, and probably irritate them. Now, Hillary Clinton, who has almost the same level of education as Obama and is certainly as intelligent, has yet managed to simplify her message consistently into bite-sized linguistic morsels that retired factory workers can digest.
And it’s not just the blue-collar folks. Hispanics, whom for many English is a second language, are generally less likely to understand someone speaking in a more elite register. They might also resent a black man who bucks the social order.
So, until the campaign season is over, I would like to recommend Sen Obama to use the following reverse thesaurus – it might help him change that honorific to President by January 2009. The words were taken from recent comments, debates & interviews:
- accelerate -> speed up
- amplify -> say louder [sic]
- anguished -> painful
- as a consequence of -> because of
- ascribe -> figure out
- assessments -> judgments
- begrudge -> have hard feelings about
- beneficiary -> receiver
- candor -> honesty
- cataloguing -> reminding
- conceivable -> possible
- deferred -> put off
- defines -> clearly shows
- deplorable -> disgusting
- deplore -> am disgusted by
- dismissive -> uninterested, disinterested [sic]
- essentially -> basically, really
- forcefully -> really strongly
- fretful -> worried
- handily -> pretty well, pretty good [sic]
- host (as in a whole host of areas) -> lot, bunch
- in concert -> together
- increments -> amounts
- initiate -> make
- irony -> the funny thing
- jarring -> beyond the pale
- made a determination -> figured out
- measured -> careful
- mindful -> aware
- notion -> idea
- objectionable -> disgusting, horrible, terrible
- observations -> things you see
- offer assurances -> make commitments
- oftentimes -> often
- oppressed -> treated badly
- perpetrators of mass violence -> terrorists, mass-murdering Islamofascists
- premised -> based
- prophylactic -> vaccine
- provide context -> explain
- provision -> something
- purposeful -> on purpose
- reflection (fig.) -> picture
- reflective of -> reminds us of
- show no inclination -> show no sign
- skewed -> biased, distorted
- substantial -> huge
- tangential -> irrelevant, unimportant
- temperament -> mood
- unfortunate -> pathetic, pitiful
- vernacular -> language
- vigorously -> strongly
- well-regarded -> liked a lot
Notice I replaced milder language (“unfortunate”, “substantial”) with stronger words (“disgusting”, “huge”) – Obama has this professorial way of tempering his language that makes it look like he’s studying our country’s problem for an article he’s writing for Foreign Affairs, instead of being incensed by them enough to want to do something about them. He needs to look and act like he’s pissed off every now and then, or people won’t get that gut feel like he’ll really fight for them for things that matter for them.
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Bored
- Sad
- Angry
“OBAMA EXPOSED”
by Publius II
There once was a man named Obama
His life began with drama
An African Muslim father
And an eccentric white mama
Obama’s white grandparents
They gave him a charmed life
Raised on the beaches of Hawaii
Far from ghetto strife
He went to private schools
Fourteen thousand dollars a year
Working-class white folks
They were nowhere near
He attended Columbia
Then Harvard Law
A very soft and liberal upbringing
Something Americans eventually saw
He then went to Chicago
Nation of Islam, Farrakhan, Black Panthers and Jackson
The only friends he made
All from the extreme left-wing faction
He joined a radical church
His Pastor downright insane
Blacks and whites, he said
Think with different parts of their brain
His church praised a man named Cone
With hateful opinions he was filled
He said white people were “the devil”
And Gods who love whites must be killed
Obama first ran for State Senate
With permission from Chicago’s Marxist King
A domestic terrorist named Ayers
Obama kissed his ring
When he was a mere State Legislator
He gave a speech against the War
As such, he wasn’t responsible for voting
A typical political whore
He wrote a book called “Dreams From My Father”
From start to finish a racist rant
After people finally read it
They later said: “Obama, no we can’t”
He wrote how he rejected his mother’s race
And that Malcolm X was a hero
People had a clear warning
Obama was a dangerous zero
He was then elected to the U.S. Senate
Obama’s ego grew very bold
He barely served a year
I will run for President was the story he told
He said he’d end the War
But in Congress his party already had control
He had about as much success
As when he tried to bowl
He spent millions to stage rallies
The crowds would yell and cheer
But then it all fizzled after he said
Typical white folks cling to religion, guns and beer
His wife said America was mean
She was never really proud
Her Black Separatist thesis at Princeton
Became a campaign cloud
People said he was a Muslim
His supporters scoffed and jeered
Then his Black Liberation Church was exposed
And Obama’s ugly head was reared
He tried to recover in a speech on race
The radical left-wing media offered raves
But he said white folks had an “untrained ear”
And abolitionists in Pennsylvania turned over in their graves
He claimed to be a uniter
He would bring people together all at once
But after his speech in Philadelphia
He proved to be a demographic dunce
He tried once more to persuade whites
But his bowling was a mess
He rolled a 37
Like a 5-year-old girl in a dress
He then played basketball
He drove the ball to the rack
But when all was said and done
He looked like an old man having a heart attack
He said damn those white voters
Their Mutual Funds I will tax
I’ll double the capital gains rate
And deliver yet another smack
He wouldn’t cover his heart
As the National Anthem played
It’s a meaningless gesture he said
But Americans felt betrayed
He wouldn’t wear a flag pin
It was against his One World view
It doesn’t matter he said
And the American people stewed
He first called terrorist Ayers his friend
Then said this man he didn’t really know
More deceit and cover-ups
Obama’s lies began to grow
Farrakhan, Jackson and Sharpton
Three of Obama’s greatest fans
He tried hiding them in the closet
So not to further offend the white man
Then came his anti-American Pastor
Obama’s mentor for 20 years
He preened, shucked and jived
White people rose up and sneered
He opposed cutting the gas tax
He said it wasn’t a winner
$40 is all it would save, he said
A weekly budget for a working family’s dinner
NBC and the New York Times
They tried each day to save Obama’s campaign
But real Americans said “FU”
And Obama spiraled down the drain
His name was Barrack Hussein Obama
Running for a second Jimmy Carter term
Weak on National Security
A little, pacifist worm
The radical left-wing Democrats
A Presidential race lost once again
Is it really a surprise
They’ve lost 7 of the last 10?
Comment by Publius II — May 5, 2008 @ 4:13 am
Interesting poem. I think we’ll be bucking some trends with Obama, though.
Comment by JM — May 5, 2008 @ 11:39 pm