Dog whistles, Walk-Backs, and Washington Handshakes: Decoding the Jargon, Slang, and Bluster of American Political Speech

270 Pages·2014·1.42 MB·English

by  McCutcheon, Chuck

Dog Whistles,
Walk- Backs,
and Washington
Handshakes
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs,
and Washington Handshakes
H
Decoding the Jargon, Slang,
and Bluster of American
H
Political Speech
Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark
Foreword by JeFF GreenF ield
ForeEdge
ForeEdge
An imprint of University Press of New England
www.upne.com
© 2014 Chuck McCutcheon and David Mark
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Richard Hendel
Typeset in Miller, Pacific Northwest, Patriotica,
and Klavika by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book,
contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street,
Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www.upne.com
Hardcover isbn: 978-1-61168-700-2
Paperback isbn: 978-1-61168-603-6
Ebook isbn: 978-1-61168-657-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014933702
5 4 3 2 1
In memory of
Madeline Mark,
Dave Holden, and
Fran McCutcheon

Contents
ix Foreword by Jeff Greenfield
xi Introduction
Chapter 1
1 Bed- Wetters, Sherpas, Squishes, and Other Personality Types
Chapter 2
37 “With All Due Respect, I Deeply Regret Holding You in
Minimum High Regard”: Only- in- Politics Expressions
Chapter 3
69 Going Downtown through the Overton Window to Play in the
Endgame: People, Places, and Things, Both Real and Imagined
Chapter 4
100 On a Glide Path with an Odd Couple to Nut- Cutting Time:
The Legislative Process
Chapter 5
129 Dead Money, Dog Whistles, and Droppin’ the G’s:
The Lingo of Campaigns and Elections
Chapter 6
173 Having to Explain Blowback on the Tick- Tock:
The Media and Scandals
203 Acknowledgments
205 Notes
247 List of Terms

Foreword
I
t is the stuff of urban legend, but the estimable
journalist-a uthor Joe Klein was an eyewitness. In his
first, quickly aborted run for the presidency in 1980,
Senator Bob Dole—already a twenty-y ear veteran of
Congress—was asked by a young girl in New Hampshire what he
would do about acid rain.
Without a second’s pause, Dole replied: “That bill’s in markup.”
It’s really not that puzzling why a United States senator would
assume that a New England schoolgirl would understand the ref-
erence to the intricacies of the legislative process; two decades in
the Capitol bubble will do that. For most of the population—let’s
call them “regular, normal people”—time spent listening to legis-
lators, operatives, and journalists thrash over public policy on
cable or a website can often result in something close to a fugue
state, induced by the repeated use of words and phrases that have
little if any connection to life as it is lived on planet Earth.
That’s why this volume may prove a lifesaver—at least, to
those who find politics a fascinating arena, who watch C- sPAn2
the way others watch Duck Dynasty or Storage Wars, but who
are often baffled by the conversation. Are you baffled by the way
“frankly” is used to mean either its exact opposite (“Frankly, I’m
the best candidate”) or nothing at all (“Frankly, 2014 is an elec-
tion year”)? Incredulous at how “the American people” is trotted
out every third sentence? In the words of a former vice president,
“Help is on the way.”
In one sense, it is utterly unsurprising that political discourse
is encrusted with linguistic quirks; that is true of all enter-
prises. Listen to an nFL broadcast, where “he put the ball on the
ground!” has replaced “fumble,” and where “audibilizing” has
added two syllables to a perfectly adequate word. Go to a corpo-
rate gathering, where attendees are urged to “think outside the
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