Many times, in politics, things become stories that oh-so-should-not-have ever been stories.
In those times, we must endure headlines such as this one, taking up prime real estate on the Washington Post Politics page:
Bush says missing -ic was an oversight
The missing -ic. The missing -ic? That's what we're talking about here in D.C., and we wonder why the rest of America isn't just rarin' to get involved in politics? Let's examine this very important question, shall we? The Democrats just won't stand for this nasty "Republ-an rhetor-", all right?
Near the beginning of the speech last week, Bush congratulated "the Democrat majority" for its electoral victory, using a long-standing Republican formulation seen by many Democrats as a calculated insult. Some liberal bloggers and party strategists saw the president's omission of the last two letters of the party's proper name, Democratic, as a sign of insincerity in preaching bipartisanship.
Nothing of the sort, Bush said in an interview yesterday with National Public Radio's Juan Williams.
"That was an oversight," said Bush, who frequently uses the formulation. "I mean, I'm not trying to needle. Look, I went into the hall saying we can work together, and I was very sincere about it. I didn't even know I did it."
Well, thank Heaven. How about the Party of the Suffixionally Fixated? The Lexical Paranoiacs?
And, how dare Bush be insincere in preaching bipartisanship?
The Democratics can dish it, but they can't take it. They're whining about an -ic. Leaving off an -ic is all that's required for the president to be accused of lowering the level of discourse. The double standard is just terrif.
If only Republ-ans had merely a missing -ic to complain about.
This is how Juan Williams asked the president about it, on NPR:
By the way, in the speech, you spoke about the Democrats. You said, you congratulated the Democrat majority. And I notice your prepared text said Democratic majority. I surely think that you know that for the Democrats, they think when you say Democrat, it's like fingernails on the blackboard. They don't like it. They like you to say Democratic.
Fr-kin' babies.