I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the president used the phrase “our dependence on foreign oil” in his Washington Post op-ed today. I just wrote 4,000 words in praise of the president for not using phrases like “our dependence on foreign oil”—in fact, that was my actual example…
While not as distilled or deathy as the Gettysburg Address, Obama’s address did have a distinct redefining-the-meaning-and-purpose-of-the-nation aspect. Look how humbly, how originally, Obama refers to what everyone for years has referred to as our dependence on foreign oil. Our dependence on the phrase our dependence on foreign oil has lowered the phrase into a cliché, and nothing invites you to shut off your mind, to assume you get something and lose interest, than a cliché. Obama’s reinvention: “Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” Those words bore deep into your brain and grow and glow. It’s a few words longer than “of the people, by the people, for the people” and less syntactically sticky, but it completely renovates the idea. It draws together war, energy, climate change, the American desire to win, science (‘evidence’), and the present moment (‘each day’). Boom. What more could be said?
I take it all back. He’s back to the old cliches already. God damn it. Being a good writer helped him become president. But being president might be making him a bad writer.
Maybe, just maybe, we really ARE dependent on foreign oil, you naive liberal fag.
I can’t believe I wasted my time reading this post.
I’d prefer *our sucking oil from the teats of the arabian sow*.
what about “terrorizing the homeland with ahriman’s black seed?”
Maybe if you stopped using your jetski as much we wouldn’t be so dependent on foreign oil.
But Canada thanks you for wasting it – after all, that’s our number one source.
Obama uses it so often it’s become one of those phrases that isn’t really made of individual words anymore, like thankyouandhaveaniceday:
Arde pendensawn fornoil.
The way things have been going in his first few weeks in office, “our dependence on foreign oil” is the least of his problems right now.
Meet the new Bush.
Same as the old Bush.
I would rather have a good president in office than a good writer. Otherwise I would’ve voted for Cormac McCarthy.
He also doesn’t know when to use “I” vs. “me.”
I’m less concerned with the use of a possible cliché by our president than I am with this childish, petulant penchant to overanalyze and microcritique everything word that comes out of the president’s mouth, rather than–oh, I don’t know–engaging and challenging our fellow citizens about things like (cliché alert here) our dependence on foreign oil.
It’s like democracy is a spectator sport, Obama is Putin, and we’re all just a bunch of snarky, little Perez Hiltons.
Way to take a thoughtful article explaining what’s going on and get absolutely hysterical about the president saying something that’s absolutely true in a way that’s been used before. Are you the same one who wrote the article in praise of hundred-word sentences?
I miss the 90’s.