This Flip Is a Flop

Quote:  “Don’t assume that because I don’t agree with you on something that it must be because I’m doing that politically.”  Barack Obama, quoted in Reuters.

Figure of Speech:  cacosyntheton (cak-o-SIN-the-ton), the bad speech. From the Greek, meaning “badly composed.”

When the silver-tongued Obama speaks badly, it’s news.  He shows real discomfort in rebutting liberal accusations that he has flip-flopped on:

• Iraq  (he is slightly backing off his original pledge to withdraw troops),
• Gun control (he tepidly praised the Supreme court’s recent decision uphold the Second Amendment while ignoring the “well ordered militia” part), and
• The right to privacy (he supports expanding the feds’ wiretapping authority).

Dems have a reputation for their spinelessness, whether deserved or not, and a flip-flopping creature qualifies as an invertebrate.  (You may think that McCain has been flip-flopping like a large-mouth bass on a slippery dock. But he’s a war hero and a Republican, which by definition means he is not spineless but flexible.)

So Obama must show good posture by refuting the flip-flopping charges every time he flip-flops.  But here’s a rhetorical lesson:  Watch when a normally articulate politician speaks with awkward syntax.  It usually means he finds himself on shaky logical ground. Today’s quote uses a double negative, an isolated pronoun, and two pathetically dependent clauses to mean:  I’m not being political. You just don’t like what I say.

Then again, Figaro used to be anti-flip-flopping, but now he’s for it.  If only Bush had flip-flopped on Iraq a week before the invasion.

Snappy Answer:  “You’re just saying that to be political.”

We Mean, Ick

Quote:  “They have to embrace the ‘ick’ factor.” Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  metallage (meh-TALL-uh-gee), the getting all medieval figure. From the Greek, meaning “making a swap.”

Are teens using oral sex to maintain their technical virginity? A recent study says no. Only 23 percent of teenagers who describe themselves as virgins say they have had oral sex in the last six months, while 82 percent of those who have had vaginal sex had also had oral sex.

The moral of that story, according to Sarah Brown, is for parents to “broaden the number of topics they discuss.”  You know, like birds, bees, fellatio…

Brown uses a currently popular idiom, “ick factor,” to describe the feeling that parents have when they hold a sexual discussion with the fruit of their loins. The expression qualifies as a metallage, a useful figure that takes parts of speech that aren’t nouns — such as verbs or adjectives — and uses them as the object of a sentence.

Samuel Jackson does this in the film Pulp Fiction, when he threatens “to get all medieval on your ass.”  Figaro assumes he was not referring to a sexual technique.

Snappy Answer:  “Do we have to embrace it? Can’t we, like, nod to it?”

She Can't Be Stopped

Quote:  “If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?” Maureen Dowd in the New York Times

Figure of Speech: dialogismus (dial-o-GIS-mus), the quoting figure.

It’s overtime again. Obama just can’t “close the deal,” as Clinton triumphantly puts it. Maureen Dowd, the feline columnist for the Times, sums up Hillary’s argument in a hyperbolic dialogismus, a figure that puts words in another person’s mouth — often in a way that the “quotee” wouldn’t exactly put herself.

Good point about the husband and the party leaders, though, Hill.

Snappy Answer:  Do we have to totally obliterate Iran? Can’t we just, like, obliterate it?

Hope Is an Old Muscle

Quote:  “They’re going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year — and they have the audacity to hope you don’t mind.”  John McCain.

Figure of Speech:  antistasis (an-TIS-ta-sis), the repeat that changes meaning. From the Greek, meaning “opposing position.”

Want to undermine your opponent’s ethos? Puncture his favorite uplifting expression — not by arguing against it but by repeating it. The antistasis does  ju jitsu on an expression by flipping its meaning.

That’s what McCain does with Obama’s Audacity of Hope, the audaciously pretentious book title. The straight-talkin’ Republican turns audacious hope into something shifty and underhanded and raise- your- taxes- in- secretiveness.

Of course, what McCain says about the Democrats’ tax plans isn’t true. But we’re talking rhetoric here, not truth. And as Figaro likes to say, rhetoric doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.

Snappy Answer:  “Which is why I’m offering every hard-working rich guy a tax cut.”

Anvil Now Falls on Head

Quote: “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Barack Obama, speaking in San Francisco of small-town voters.

Figure of Speech: polysyndeton (polly-SIN-deh-ton), the conjunction repeater. From the Greek, meaning “multiple connectors.”

While Figaro hates the sin, he loves the polysyndeton. Obama’s use of it, figuratively speaking, is especially deft. By linking a whole set of examples with the conjunction “or,” he conjures an image of lost souls casting about for meaning.

Of course, he must be taking his lines right out of the Republicans’ Democrat Stereotyping Book. Arrogant? Patronizing? Dismissive of deeply held values? Check and check and check.

Two days before Obama coughed up that gaffe, Figaro’s flight out of San Antonio, Texas, got delayed an hour and a half because of a “ground stop.” Commercial flights were halted to make way for corporate jets flying in fatcats to watch the Final Four basketball playoffs. Call Figaro a lefty, but it seems like the whole country is in a similar kind of ground stop.

Meanwhile, the Democrats manage to make the Republicans seem like populists. Get used to saying “President McCain,” fellow Americans.

Snappy Answer:  “They’re not the only ones getting bitter.”

Johnny, McCain, Please Report to the Principal

Quote:  “I will always believe that there is a Mr. Ravenel somewhere for every child who needs him.” John McCain, speaking to his alma mater, the Episcopal School in Alexandria, Virginia

Figure of Speech: antonomasia (an-to-no-MAY-sia), the namer. From the Greek, meaning “other name.”

While Obama’s minister continues to haunt him, and Clinton channels Rocky, Senator McCain does an early victory lap around his angry boyhood.  In a speech to his old high school, McCain recalls his English teacher, a WWII war vet and football coach.

Offer merit increases, McCain implies, and Mr. Ravenels will be springing up all over the place — a fine antonomasia that makes his personal story universal and politically relevant. The antonomasia uses a person’s name to describe a set of traits, and it serves as a rhetorical incubator for eponyms.

“He helped teach me to be a man,” McCain says. You rarely hear that phrase from a Democrat — either because it’s sexist or because no Democratic male was ever initiated into the manly mysteries.

Figaro is an independent, but he counts himself among the machismoally agnostic. Then again, you’ll never find him running for president. Even as a woman.

Snappy Answer: “Please don’t propose a No Mr. Ravenel Left Behind Act.”