One of the more bizarre moments in Keith Olbermann’s bizarre rant against Scott Brown (deftly ridiculed by Jon Stewart) was when Olbermann called Brown “tea-bagging”. What the heck does that even mean? Brown is a “tea-bagging” so-and-so? As in, he likes to “tea-bag”? “Tea-bag” as a verb? And the act of “tea-bagging” is what, exactly, Mr. Olbermann? (Yes, yes, I am aware there is such a slang term that refers to something sexual, not exactly sure what, but I want to know what it’s supposed to mean in this context.) One of my pet peeves is slang shorthand, evidently from the internet, that literally doesn’t mean anything but enters the political lexicon. Hate to break it to you lefties, but “tea-bagging” (or, being a “tea-bagger”) just doesn’t actually really mean anything, yet in certain circles people say it to each other and nod knowingly and think they are communicating something. Other examples that come to mind: a couple years ago when lefties adopted the word “truthiness” from some other Comedy Central show and started splashing it around, thinking they were communicating something meaningful about President Bush; or the more generic, but equally meaningless, use of the word “wingers” – as in, lefties calling a conservative or a right-winger a “winger” (which still makes no sense to me – how/why is the word “winger” supposed to specifically connote right-wingers but not left-wingers?). In all these cases the only thing the use of these meaningless insidery-slang terms really communicates is ‘I read way way too many echo-chamber left-wing blogs’. It’s the political equivalent of dropping phrases like ‘all your base are belong to us’…just makes me want to back away, slowly.
Speaking of geniuses in the media, Chris Matthews just said he “forgot” Obama was black during the President’s State of the Union speech. Doesn’t this imply that prior to that, Obama being black had been in the forefront of Matthews’ mind?
Regarding President Obama’s appearance, the one thing I will say is that he has aged a lot. He now looks significantly older to me than he did just a year ago. Grayer hair, ashen face, sunken sockets. This is a known phenomenon that happens to all Presidents during their time in office, but I am a little surprised it’s taken only a year to affect this President. I wonder what he’ll look like three years from now.
This has been a bunch of shallow observations by your friendly neighborhood,
Sonic Charmer
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