Thursday, July 19, 2012

Language Matters: Contributions Toward the Comprehensive Romney Dictionary

It's time to acknowledge that Willard M. Romney is adding phrases to the 2012 campaign at a record pace. He's already added far more depth and absurdity to the English language than John McCain, the most recent Republican nominee.  

Here are the first obvious contributions to the dictionary: 

Corporations Are People: If only one phrase can follow Mitt Romney into future history books, it will probably be this one, a heartfelt sentiment he voiced to hecklers on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in August 2011. It summed up his personal philosophy as well as the political mood in this year when the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has given corporate money free rein to steal our electoral process.
Retroactively Retired: Who knew that the ultra-rich had the power to so easily time travel and erase responsibility for four years of actions by the company of which you were CEO and sole owner? We didn't know until Romney senior advisor Ed Gillespie explained it to us on Meet the Press last Sunday. Next, Mitt Romney is going to retroactively retire from the Massachusetts Governorship on the day before he signed Romneycare into law.
"Romney" as a verb: To defecate in terror. Self explanatory for anyone who knows the story of poor Seamus the Irish Setter riding on the roof of the family station wagon.
Running for Office, for Pete's Sake: Used to indicate that of course you would take the expedient, slightly-illegal, normal course of action (e.g., having undocumented Mexican gardeners sprucing up the grounds of your six homes) if you did not have that pesky press and inquisitive voters second guessing you. Phrase introduced to America in October 2011 during a debate with Rick Perry about "illegals". 
Self-Deportation: This ideal solution for the problem of undocumented immigrants (or "illegal aliens" in the official GOP Styleguide) was suggested by Mitt Romney in a January 2012 debate, but he was unwittingly lifting the idea from the satirical stance of "Daniel D. Portado" in 1994. It is also a description of what the Romney family may need to do when the IRS finally audits his unreleased tax returns and they self-deport to join their money in Switzerland or Bermuda or the Cayman Islands.
Ten Thousand Bucks: This is equal to $9.28 if you are an average 65-year-old American. It's equal to $0.06 cents if you're an average American between 21-25. In other words, he was putting no serious money where his mouth was when he offered to bet $10,000 with Rick Perry during a debate on December 10, 2011.

Do you have others that need to be added in the next installment? 

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