Liberal Talk Radio

Here’s another one I can’t stand, while I’m at it: “Ought.” Bloggers love this, and pols have started to catch on, too. “Ought” is the hip new word in the ’sphere. Not just in the old-fashioned “there ought to be a law!” either. No, these days, ought is everywhere. Matt Yglesias is a huge fan of the word. I like Matt’s writing a lot, but every time he uses that word I die a little inside.

So how bad is the “ought” situation? Read it and weep. Over the last 90 days, according to Technorati, occurrences of the word have more than tripled.

“Tim, the folks in my district think there ought to be a law!”

Kill me now.

I’m watching James Whitfield, Regional Director of HHS, on the local PBS evening show, KCTS Connects. He’s talking about (read: spinning) the botched Medicare prescription drug benefit. He’s used the word “folks” approximately nine times in the last 3 minutes, usually referring to senior citizens.

The word “folks” has become a staple of the politicians’ lexicon these days. Perhaps they’re trying to be “folksy” and this is the easiest way to do it. It’s certainly the least creative. They like to drop it in there when they’re about to snow you on something. It’s a way to disarm. It’s like when they call the interviewer by their first name: always a “tell” that they’re full of it. Anytime Tim Russert gets a Senator into a tight spot in an interview on MTP, you can count on the Senator to respond, “Tim, I think folks are want us in Congress to…”

Why the talking heads haven’t picked up on this amazes me. Or maybe they’ve picked up on it and they don’t feel like asking a follow-up. I would. If I was interviewing a pol and he or she responded by saying, “Bruno, folks in this country…” I’d cut ‘em off right there. “Ok, congressman, clearly you’re full of sh**, so let’s try that one again, shall we?”