Why "-gate?"

[Tiggeroshii]

I have been wondering this for quite a while. In the last 5 years or so Bush was president, every potential scandal coming to light was dubbed with a "-gate" at the end of the title, most of which would roll off the tongue: Votergate, Gannongate, Rovegate, etc. Although I udnerstand that "-gate" has come to mean over the decades to be something of an infamous nature that would destroy a president, such as what Clinton's scandal was named after, I think that each new scandal involving a president is a unique scandal and should be dubbed by it's own name that symbolizes most not something that had destroyed the president in the past, but rather something symbolizing the fall of THIS president. Rovegate still rings of nixon, trying to put nixon's infamy onto this president. Bush has his own pile of muck collecting that will alone defeat his reign. We don't need people thinking of Nixon all the time.

When these sets of scandals break, I want somebody to be thinking specifically Bush and the revolting thoughts that ring of "Bush" to come to light. Not Nixon. So maybe if we jsut talk about that Bush scandal involving Rove, something will come up from under the dust. The problem with these "-gates" at the end of everything is that watergate happened a good thirty years ago. This is new. Not just the meddling of the president in fraud and tawdry thievery but an even larger and more infamous scandal involving the meddling in CIA Intelligence and the breaching of National Security on top of every dirty trick that destroyed Nixon. This is a scandal that probably tops all scandals including watergate and if emmited properly into the mainstream media, wiill have a much more disastrous effect on Bush and the republican party than Nixon's scandal or Clinton's scandals did on their political parties at the times.

End this hysteria of watergate references we've got going on. This is something far, far bigger and far more serious. Let's make sure it has it's own title of infamy by the time it's all over.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

1. "Treason Cover-up"

[Bleacher Creature]

2. How about the "Rovepot Dome Scandal"???

In all seriousness, though, I agree. I was getting sick of the gate crap during the Clinton Adminstration (Travelgate was the WORST).

[kiki]

3. How about "Bush Scandal #431" n/t

[DemsUnited]

4. EXCELLENT point!! Agree 100%

"gating" trivializes the importance and severity of what's going on. Iran Contra wasn't "gated" and it is no where near as awful as the outright treason going on in the highest offices at the White House.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The media picked up on "--gate" because

Watergate was the mother of all political scandals, and over time it turned into a sort of cheap, easy shorthand for any kind of political scandal or wrongdoing. I'm tired of it, too; but I don't think it's necessarily bad to remind the public of the parallels to Watergate. Nixon went down in flames. Maybe Bush will go down in Plames.

[Tiggeroshii]

8. I think

I think that since watergate, the potential for poltical scandal was increased traumatically. Since Clinton, it has been clear that a president can get into trouble for pretty much anything. Because of this, president's may have a much harder time staying in power and there are probably still a million different scandals awaiting every president in the future. Either Congress is gonna get so tired of the cheap titles we come up with for these scandals and quit doing impeachment proceedings all together, or the media and the public better start getting creative or my head's gonna empty from all the nausea this all ensues.

like... :puke:

[RobertSeattle]

6. This is bigger than a -gate, it is a PORTAL (!)

...But it just doesn't slip off the tongue as well.

[newswolf56]

7. Simply because today's media people -- hired as they are through...

news-monopoly personnel offices -- are chosen not for their brilliance or imagination but for how well they fit the Big Business mold: utterly conformist, never-rock-the-boat automatons who will simply follow orders and fill their daily, weekly and annual story quotas. It's all part of the deliberate dumbing-down of America.

Short answer? Because the people writing and editing the stories are too hopelessly unimaginative to come up with anything better.

[Journeyman]

9. A scandal will hold and Bush will go down when it has its own name. . .

so long as it's trivialized by unimaginative people and stuck with a "borrowed" infamy, Bush will skate.

When it gets its own name, then we can explain the full horror to all.

[Tiggeroshii]

10. agreed.

I think it's getting to the point where people are jsut seeing this "gate" thing as too common and "seen it before" to realize the importance and signifcance of the scandal in the big picture... Or small picture. It will take an angry media and a driven public to get that to happen. Maybe we can start here?

[newswolf56]

11. Superb point. You're absolutely right. And it won't happen as long as...

the present-day zomboid mercenary mentality prevails in print and broadcast media.

Interesting discussion along those same lines -- a quest for an alternative to gateling -- here a few days ago. Sorry I can't find the link. (My nomination was for "Vendetta against Valerie Plame," shortened to "Vendetta vs. Plame" for heads and then simply "Plame Vendetta" in subsequent references.)