"Political analysts" who actually think that the meme of "Hawaii seems foreign" resonates as a critique of the president. Or the idea that there are people in this country that that might actually strike a chord with.
Also, the word "optics" as in "It's bad optics for the president to stay in Hawaii when terrorists are targeting the country with their exploding crotches." I've been seeing it creep more and more into what passes for talking head analysis in the last year and there is something about it that just makes me grind my molars--it has just the right note of insidery jargon to deeply irritate.
I think "optics" is already on my list of banned words of 2010.
couldn't you have just pared this down to "political analysts"?
Most of the time they are a low level somewhat irritating drone in the background. The stuff today that some Romney guy was spouting just made me see absolute red. I'm not sure whether I'm more enraged about the Hawaii is foreign part, or the idea that Obama should drop everything and rush off to DC in a panic because a terrorist plot didn't succeed (1) when apparently it was okay to stay in Texas while a major US city was destroyed and actual US citizens were suffering and dying.
(1) That's not to day that I don't think there were NOT massive screw ups that let the crotchbomber get as far as he did and heads do need to roll, but realistically, no fundamental review and reevaluation is going to get done this week no matter where Obama is, because everyone else in DC is on holiday too. And despite Hawaii apparently being another country, the phones and internets work there so it's not like he can't do the keeping in touch stuff there.
Personally, I think mocking and disregarding (on a "OMG let's all be scared and change our entire way of life and start another war" level) is the exactly right way to react to this incident. Yes, step up figuring out ways to shut down this latest go round and do something about Yemen as a haven and yes, figure out how to readjust our procedures to catch these guys, but it's not really a cause for hysteria.
I was recently reading some stuff about the 70s and somehow we made it through a decade of worldwide hijackings, bombings etc. with a ton of terrorist groups and people like Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal running around and people didn't seem to lose their shit over it all like they do now. The incidents weren't as shocking spectacular as 9/11 (with the possible exception of the Munich incident) but on a day to day basis were a lot more frquent and worldwide. Yet somehow we all got through it without invasions and shredding the Constitution. I just wish there were more people speaking out publically for (or more accurately, CNN & Co. were giving more airtime to ) the "Good lord people get a grip" POV.