OBAMARAMA

Thanks to the many folks who directed me towards William Safire’s latest On Language column, which focuses on Sen. Obama’s considered dispensation of words and bears the snappy title “Obamarama.”

An excerpt:

Obama, often described as a “media darling” (just as Senator John McCain was in 2000), is a politician who apparently chooses his words with care. Consider the adjective he chose to deal with questions about his purchase of a strip of land adjacent to his home from Tony Rezko, his longtime friend indicted (not convicted) last fall on charges of extorting kickbacks from companies seeking state business. At first, Obama acknowledged that “it was stupid,” a harsh admission, but later found an adjective better suited to a candidate for high office: “I am the first one to acknowledge that it was a boneheaded move for me to purchase that strip from Rezko, given that he was already under a cloud of concern.” (The usual metaphor is “cloud of suspicion”; Obama softened it to concern.)Boneheaded was a perfect choice: not as condemnatory or self-flagellating as stupid, nor as dismissive as foolish, nor as formal as ignorant, nor carrying a secondary drug connotation as dopey, nor as frivolous as silly, nor as inapt as dumb (considered a slur by the speech-impaired). The successor adjective to blockheaded and woodenheaded, both in lexical desuetude, became fixed in American slang on or soon after Sept. 23, 1908, with the New York Giants facing the Chicago Cubs in the game that would ultimately decide which team would win the National League pennant.

Looking forward to returning to our preferred OBAMARAMA with a vengeance on Wednesday…