Snow: No Slight Intended by Bush's Gaffe

[Newsjock]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2007/01/29/national/w093316S37.DTL

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- This one has gotten a little ic-ky for the White House.

Spokesman Tony Snow said Monday that President Bush had no intention of slighting the party now running Congress by referring to it as the "Democrat majority" — as opposed to the "Democratic majority" — in his State of the Union speech.

... "He spends an entire speech talking about reaching out and working together, and a few people who apparently haven't gotten the message run out and they complain that the letters "ic" were missing from 'Democratic,'" Snow said.

... Bush plans to speak to the House Democratic Caucus at its conference this weekend in Virginia.

On the president's schedule, that event is referred to as the "House Democrat Conference."

[Why Syzygy]

1. That ought to be a hoot.

:party: repub gw

[C_U_L8R]

2. yet no apology either

there's no chance that Bush did not intend to say it..
it's been a freakin reichwing talking point for months
stupid republican clowns got caught in their own fraternity mean-spiritedness
and feign surprise. Yeah right.

[Matariki]

8. yep, typical asshole response

not only feign surprise, but act like the recipient of their meanness is imagining things or being petty and 'hysterical' for calling them on it.

transparent as ice.

[Cha]

41. YEah, and snowjob is getting off

on scolding us. Like we believe a goddamn word the monkeyrat says.

[rodeodance]

22. Tony see s this omission as a TYPO (like the "comma")

[MGKrebs]

33. George just exceeded his letter limit.

That's how this whole thing got started. George has an 8 letter limit. They have to modify everything to fit that limit, and the VRWC picks it up and runs with it.

[whistle]

3. I would much rather be called democrat than reTHUGlican anytime

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Fuc Ton Sno and the Republic Part.

[Missy M]

5. Oh sure Tony, we really believe you....

I read that the official transcript of the speech had it down as 'DemocratIC' which means Bush changed it himself.

[truthisfreedom]

6. one little problem now that they've addressed this... they can't use it again.

or they risk looking like the little sophomoric pranksters that they are.

[Judi Lynn]

16. It's actually a hidden sign they are desperate, feel obsessed with striking out at Democrats,

can't find any Democratic politicians vulnerable to attack, and are reduced to idiotic fool's play!

Their next move may be to place dog doo in a brown paper bag, put it on D.L.C. Chairman Harold Ford's front step, and set it on fire.

We all remember the fine work they did with Watergate, for Robert Strauss, after all.

[dysfunctional press]

26. i kinda like the dog doo on the dlc's front step idea...

mind if i give it a go?

[Rose Siding]

7. What, diplomacy isn't their strong suit?

Who knew? :eyes:

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. Democratic ideals have never been their strong suit

as Florida 2000 showed.

[onehandle]

10. White House Press Room = Just another Fox News studio.

I wonder how the other press that is "allowed" into the press room feel about Fox News calling the shots? Aside from however Guckert/Gannons that are placed by Rove.

[global1]

11. I'm Going To Appear To Be Real Dumb Here - But What Is The Controversy Around....

Democrat vs Democratic? I may have missed this when this first became an issue - but would somebody please explain why I should be offended.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

14. the Right Wing likes to sneeringly call us 'Rats'

and they like to put the emphasis on the last syllable when saying things like "Democrat Congress".
Meanwhile, I have found another insulting story about this: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/01/29/couricandco/entry2409257.shtml

[dysfunctional press]

27. that's not it...

it's been going on for years- they don't like the idea of a democratic society having a "democratic" party.

[stanwyck]

18. Also, intentionally mispronouncing someone's name

when you really have known their real name, for decades, is just a fratboy way of being insulting. See, I'm funny. I say Democrat Party.

[kestrel91316]

19. Deliberately, knowlingly, and repeatedly calling someone by the

WRONG NAME is not just rude. It is a deliberate power play or slight.

"We'll call you whatever we like. We're the Deciders(TM)!"

[Doremus]

23. Chimpco has been trying to build a _democratic_ government in Iraq.

Since they chucked the WMD farce, it's been all about installing a democratic government in the image of our own, a grand and glorious Democracy, apple pie, American dream, yadda yadda.

Somebody on the propaganda committee (the one who can read) realized the connection and the command came down that, henceforth, the Democratic Party shall be referred to as the Democrat Party, a pejorative and not in any way connected with the righteous mission in the middle east.

Now I don't know if any of this is true, but I'd bet my Dove chocolate on it.

[kath]

45. Here's a New Yorker article that explains it:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060807ta_talk_hertzberg

The "Ic" Factor
(excerpt)
The history of “Democrat Party” is hard to pin down with any precision, though etymologists have traced its use to as far back as the Harding Administration. According to William Safire, it got a boost in 1940 from Harold Stassen, the Republican Convention keynoter that year, who used it to signify disapproval of such less than fully democratic Democratic machine bosses as Frank Hague of Jersey City and Tom Pendergast of Kansas City. Senator Joseph McCarthy made it a regular part of his arsenal of insults, which served to dampen its popularity for a while. There was another spike in 1976, when grumpy, growly Bob Dole denounced “Democrat wars” (those were the days!) in his Vice-Presidential debate with Walter Mondale. Growth has been steady for the last couple of decades, and today we find ourselves in a golden age of anti-“ic”-ism.

In the conservative media, the phenomenon feeds more voraciously the closer you get to the mucky, sludgy bottom. “Democrat Party” is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger Web sites like NewsMax.com, which blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-“ic” references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that “Democrat Party” is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.) The respectable conservative journals of opinion sprinkle the phrase around their Web sites but go light on it in their print editions. William F. Buckley, Jr., the Miss Manners cum Dr. Johnson of modern conservatism, dealt with the question in a 2000 column in National Review, the magazine he had founded forty-five years before. “I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began. "Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity. But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language."

The job of politicians, however, is different, and among those of the Republican persuasion “Democrat Party” is now nearly universal. This is partly the work of Newt Gingrich, the nominal author of the notorious 1990 memo “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” and his Contract with America pollster, Frank Luntz, the Johnny Appleseed of such linguistic innovations as “death tax” for estate tax and “personal accounts” for Social Security privatization. Luntz, who road-tested the adjectival use of “Democrat” with a focus group in 2001, has concluded that the only people who really dislike it are highly partisan adherents of the—how you say?—Democratic Party. “Those two letters actually do matter,” Luntz said the other day. He added that he recently finished writing a book—it’s entitled “Words That Work”—and has been diligently going through the galley proofs taking out the hundreds of “ic”s that his copy editor, one of those partisan Dems, had stuck in.

In days gone by, the anti-“ic” tic tended to be reined in at the Presidential level. Ronald Reagan never used it in polite company, and George Bush père was too well brought up to use the truncated version of the out party’s name more than sparingly. Not so Bush fils—and not just in e-mails sent to the Party faithful, which he obviously never reads, let alone writes. “It’s time for the leadership in the Democrat Party to start laying out ideas,” he said a few weeks ago, using his own personal mouth. “The Democrat Party showed its true colors during the tax debate,” he said a few months before that. “Nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for actually getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program,” he said a week before that. What he meant is anybody’s guess, but his bad manners were impossible to miss. Hard as it is to believe from this distance in time, George W. Bush came to office promising to “change the tone.” That he has certainly done. But, as with so much else, it hasn’t worked out quite the way he promised.

[gratuitous]

12. Fair enough; no slight intended

Now knock it off, would you? Because contrary to your assertion, Mr. Snow, we have indeed gotten the message from this administration. It's about time you started receiving a few messages, hmmm?

[BushOut06]

13. I'm surprised he doesn't refer to us as Democratians

Who knows, maybe he has in the past.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. no slight in calling opposition traitors or unpatriotic either.

because unless you agree with the boy king 100% of the time, it is the truth.

[Bark Bark Bark]

17. Li'l Dubbie Didn't Mean To Say "Crusade" Either...

In other news, an entire squadron of pigs flew out of my ass today.

The Decider has decided that no offense was meant and no offense should have been taken, therefore no apology is necessary. Further disagreement with The Decider will not be tolerated. He's not The Tolerater. He's The Decider.

[BadgerKid]

20. Anecdote on "-ic"

I have wondered if some people honestly don't know the difference between the forms.One time I was speaking with a local Dem. candidate, she mentioned she was aware that usage varied by locality. It was her claim that she would not be understood half the time if she were to use the proper adjectival form at all times.

[Karenina]

21. Ah, the abject failure

of the American educational system...

[Igel]

25. The difference:

A.  [ [House] [Democratic [Conference] ] ]

versus

B.  [ [House [Democrat] ] [Conference] ]

The first is the House edition of the conference of the
Democratic Party members(presumably 'Party' is to be
understood, as is 'members'); the second is the conference of
House Democrats.  Each set of brackets [ ] shows boundaries of
words and phrases.

I find that [B] is what is properly understood by [A], in a
curious mismatch of form and meaning.

There's an option [C]:

C.  [ [ [House] [Democratic] ] [conference] ]

which would be the conference of the House Democratic Party,
but since there is no such thing ...

People act like a noun can't function as an adjective, then
they write things like 'House Democratic Conference', where
they must believe 'House' is a noun.  Chomsky would be
appalled--not at the phrase, but at the belief.

[immoderate]

32. Good points.

Nouns can stand as adjectives. I get the point, and it is annoying when they do, for that is their purpose, but, the argument is too nebulous to spend time on.

--IMM

[rodeodance]

24. more BS. from the BS'er himself. If not a slight then Bush is stupid. Take

your pick

[FtWayneBlue]

28. What did you say, Tony

Derwood?

[CreekDog]

29. Joe Lieberman said he considers himself a member of the Democrat party

[The Count]

31. I am sure he is. The one and only.

[The Count]

30. "How dare you not be awed by his rethoric, you puny earthlings?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recurring_non-human%2C_non-robot_characters_from_Futurama#Morbo


However you can see the article was modified already, with the most arrogant Snow quote taken out.. It's been toned down considerably.

[RamboLiberal]

34. I think the damn Repukes are so used to saying Democrat Party

they can't correct themselves. It's just programmed into their itty bitty little brains! I remember after Tweety rebuked Ron Christie on his show, next time on Tweety's show Christie still said "Democrat" party but caught himself and corrected to Democratic Party.

They just programmed themselves. You know they are robotic in parroting their talking points.

[Fresh_Start]

35. Bush meant no slight when he called critics terrorists sympathizers

Bush meant no slight when he said that antiwar Americans wanted America to lose

[catnhatnh]

36. Bush admits his inability to read from a teleprompter...

it was over 3 syllables and therefore not my fault...

[tom_paine]

37. Snow is a liar grotesque in his transparency

This has been a part of the Bushevik Playbook for more than a DECADE!

It was re-introduced by Newt and no one with a passing familiarity with Busheviks and their malevolent linguistics, could be 'mistaken' or 'unaware' why the Busheviks use the 'Democrat' term.

Just another reminder about why these "Free-Market Soviets" MUST BE OPPOSED! Because they are no different from Soviets. No different at all.

[ninkasi]

38. Another one who used Democrat instead of Democratic

was the odious, repulsive, lying, corrupt, and arrogant Tom Delay.

[CreekDog]

39. Lieberman said he's open to voting for the Democrat Party

I'm having fun with this stooooopidity. :o)

[ninkasi]

40. Lieberman is a very unappealing

example of a turncoat. He will cater to whichever party, or person, she thinks will advance his power. I wish one of the more moderate Republics would switch parties, so we could kick him to the curb. He is worse than a Republic, he is a traitor.

[tom_paine]

48. It's 50-50 that Lieberman has ALWAYS been a Bushevik Mole

Now, his cover is irrevocably blow, so he is getting whtever last mileage he can out of the deception.

Like seniority bestowed on him by the party he calls the Democrat Party and other perks the Busheviks cannot now give him.

50-50 chance.

[struggle4progress]

42. Toy Sow is right: who cares about a letter or two?

[mitchum]

43. No slight intended when mitchum refers to bush and snow as NAZIS

[CBHagman]

44. I see your chutzpah and raise you six years of vindictiveness.

Tony Snow has, as they say, more cheek than a sumo wrestler. Not only is the McCarthy-style use of "Democrat" as an adjective nothing new in Bush's public speeches but we have, in addition, years of partisan actions. Bush came to D.C. claiming he would change the tone. Yes, he made it nastier than in recent memory. Even the class of '94 GOP wasn't as vicious as Bush has been.

If I were in the White House press corps, I wouldn't be able to contain myself from rolling my eyes and snorting at 90 percent of Snow's utterances.

[G_j]

46. Guardian story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6380099,00.html

[high density]

47. That's ok, they're all Republics to me now

And will be forever more.