“Six years in, there can be no doubt President Obama is winning decisively in his war on any and all straw men who cross his path,” David Rutz writes at the Washington Free Beacon:
“We reject the belief that Americans must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future,” he declared during his second inaugural address, a false choice if there ever was one.
Then there are his “there are those who” remarks, where Obama lays out—before a partisan, friendly audience—something no one’s ever stated that’s utterly silly and then refutes said silly belief. “There are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science.” “There are those who say these plans are too ambitious. We should be trying to do less, not more.” “There are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: Anything goes.”
No wonder some say Obama’s biggest defenders, the people who blindly abetted his rise to power, are those who make their living invoking straw men of their own via their constant references to “some say,” which some say that the Anchoress voted “Most Annoying Phrase of The Year” for 2005:
My personal choice: “some say…” Used continually by Katie Couric, David Gregory and oh, basically anyone in the press who wanted to advance their own personal opinion or the general concensus of the fourth estate: “Some say President Bush is trying to undermine our civil liberties,” “Some say Iraq is a quagmire,” “Some say America is a world-bully,” “Some say if only the Kyoto treaty had been recognised…”Just once, I would like to hear a politician come back with, “WHO says? WHO exactly SAYS, Katie, David, Tim, etc”
And just once is about all I know of a politician pushing back, as Margaret Thatcher memorably did in the early ’80s when confronted by a “some say” media interrogator:
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