Missed It By That Much

“Maureen Dowd finds the lightning bug,” Scott Johnson writes at Power Line:

Mark Twain famously observed: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Maureen Dowd presents as tomorrow’s Exhibit A. She happened onto the lightning bug in her New York Times column “Dems in distress.” Referring to the Democrats’ current panic as a crisis of confidence in President Obama, Dowd writes: “It’s not just congressional Democrats who are kvelling” (don’t spellcheck me, bro).

My grandparents were native Yiddish speakers, so I happen to know that “kvelling” means “taking pride in.”

Entirely coincidentally, as Salon further descends into 24/7 race-obsessed tribalism, one of their writers asks, “How did Irish Americans get so disgusting?” (Link safe; goes to Twitchy.) Perhaps Salon will amend the article to kvetch about their fellow leftist’s white bread provincialism, but I’m not holding my breath.