A Humorous Look at Rhetoric from the 2008 Presidential Campaign

These satirical definitions of campaign rhetoric are from the Weekly Standard:

“Energy Independence. What the candidates hope to achieve in ten years. Actually, more like twenty. Or maybe twenty-five. Wait–why don’t we make it thirty. Forty maybe? How does forty sound to you? Forty-five?

Experience. Unnecessary for presidents; absolutely necessary for vice presidents. Joe Biden, for example, has a tremendous amount of experience in being wrong. He was wrong about the Reagan defense buildup, wrong about the first Gulf war, says he was wrong about the second, and was definitely wrong about the surge. So much experience in being wrong is extremely rare. This is why he would make an excellent vice president.”

From “A Dictionary of Political Clichés” by Matthew Continetti.