Friday, July 25, 2008

Presumptuous - the new uppity

Via digby

And today, the word of the day in the corporate press is... presumptuous. Used in a sentence: Senator Obama is being presumptuous during his trip -- acting all presidential and dignified. How dare he be presidential while running for, you know, president. Presumptuous. During the live CNN web feed of the Berlin address, an anchor used it to describe the event. Joe Klein used it in a blog post today. Of course Joe attributed it to racist voters rather than very serious reporters -- racist because it's presumably a synonym for 'uppity' and we can't accuse the press of such awfulness. And Candy Crowley used it in her post-address analysis on CNN. That's a lot of coincidences. "Presumptuous" must really be a popular word. ......

AP: "In a speech that risked being seen as presumptuous..."

TIME Magazine: "capable to become the Commander in Chief of a superpower -- without seeming presumptuous..."

The National Journal: "He is well aware voters here at home might see that as presumptuous..."

Washington Post: "Whether by the end of this week he will be seen as presumptuous or overly cocky..."

Chicago Tribune: "That means walking the fine line between looking presidential and appearing arrogant and presumptuous..."

Boston Globe: "plus the growing sense in some quarters that the presumptive Democratic nominee is getting a little presumptuous..."

1 comment:

cynthia said...

From what I can tell, the members of the press aren't necessarily being racists; they're merely reinforcing the stereotype that Dems are soft on defense -- which is fine in my book. The softer they are on defense, the better, IMO.

In fact, I'm all in favor of the president dropping his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. After all, about the only thing we have gained by being a superpower is a hefty load of debt. So by ridding ourselves of our superpower status, we may finally be free to concentrate on taking care of business here at home!