Quote: “In this election, the Republicans deserve to lose, and the Democrats don’t deserve to win.” Robert J. Samuelson in the Washington Post.Figure of Speech: scesis onomaton (SKEE-sis o-NOM-a-ton), the idea repeat. From the Greek, meaning “related words.”
Voters are sick of the Republicans, and not just because the party led us into an unnecessary war and jacked up the biggest deficit in history. Americans hate corruption more than anything; you usually get a sea change in Congress when it’s clear that the party in power is corrupt. And, boy, is this party corrupt.
So what will Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi do if she becomes Speaker of the House? As one of her first moves, she’ll appoint Alcee Hastings chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. A former federal judge, Hastings was convicted by the Senate of bribery. Way to clean things up, Nancy!
Robert Samuelson responds with a particularly neat scesis onomaton (or S.O., as we like to call it), in which an idea gets repeated in successive phrases. Unlike the tautology, which claims to prove something, the S.O. simply offers a parallel set of opinions. It lets you spring a clever little surprise. Readers think they’re being set up for a contrast: the Republicans deserve to lose… But they get a comparison instead: …and the Democrats don’t deserve to win.
Figaro is beginning to wonder whether our republic’s founders were right about the two-party system. They thought it was a very bad idea.
Snappy Answer: “And non-voters don’t deserve anything.”