I'll Be So Glad When This Summer of Love Is Over
James Wolcott
Vanity Fair
There are times when Democrats remind me of the episode of Seinfeld where, after a slapstick chain of mishaps, Kramer finds himself pinned against the wall like a soldier about to be executed as a tennis-ball machine bops one ball after another off of his head, until he groggily collapses and slides out of frame. The history and velocity and modus operandi of conservative attacks on elected Democrats are out there in the screaming daylight open and yet time and again they find themselves in a passive, stationary, unprepared position, getting pounded into mush, going down in--well, it's too early and wimpy to talk about defeat. But stale defeatism is definitely loose in the air.
This health-care reform debate, for example. Just take the phrase itself, "health care reform," or, in its usual journalistic shorthand, "health reform."
Are you telling me that with all the money pumped into consultants and pollsters, in a country whose media culture is built on advertising and catchphrases, that with all of ambitious little beavering minds who have studied the art and science of persuasion (and know Lakoff "framing" backwards and forwards, chapter and verse), that with all of that the architects and backers couldn't come up with something more inspiring and memorable than "health care reform"? Where's the creativity, the missionary zeal, the visionary spark? First of all, "reform" is one of the most boring fucking well-meaning meaningless words in the language. It's a word that carries no juice, no buzz, no friction, no color, no nothing.
Why is it that Republican consultants can coin something as cunningly diabolical as "death tax" (as a substitute for inheritance taxes) and sell the hell out of it, or contrive the "Contract with America," yet health reform is packaged in a plain brown wrapper with all the pizazz of a corporate restructuring plan. It should have been called something upbeat and flagwavey like "The American Health Freedom Act," guaranteeing health coverage and available, affordable insurance for all.
(More here.)
Vanity Fair
There are times when Democrats remind me of the episode of Seinfeld where, after a slapstick chain of mishaps, Kramer finds himself pinned against the wall like a soldier about to be executed as a tennis-ball machine bops one ball after another off of his head, until he groggily collapses and slides out of frame. The history and velocity and modus operandi of conservative attacks on elected Democrats are out there in the screaming daylight open and yet time and again they find themselves in a passive, stationary, unprepared position, getting pounded into mush, going down in--well, it's too early and wimpy to talk about defeat. But stale defeatism is definitely loose in the air.
This health-care reform debate, for example. Just take the phrase itself, "health care reform," or, in its usual journalistic shorthand, "health reform."
Are you telling me that with all the money pumped into consultants and pollsters, in a country whose media culture is built on advertising and catchphrases, that with all of ambitious little beavering minds who have studied the art and science of persuasion (and know Lakoff "framing" backwards and forwards, chapter and verse), that with all of that the architects and backers couldn't come up with something more inspiring and memorable than "health care reform"? Where's the creativity, the missionary zeal, the visionary spark? First of all, "reform" is one of the most boring fucking well-meaning meaningless words in the language. It's a word that carries no juice, no buzz, no friction, no color, no nothing.
Why is it that Republican consultants can coin something as cunningly diabolical as "death tax" (as a substitute for inheritance taxes) and sell the hell out of it, or contrive the "Contract with America," yet health reform is packaged in a plain brown wrapper with all the pizazz of a corporate restructuring plan. It should have been called something upbeat and flagwavey like "The American Health Freedom Act," guaranteeing health coverage and available, affordable insurance for all.
(More here.)
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