President Obama’s New American Vocabulary

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

 

Of all the many changes that the Obama administration has enacted over the last five years, the least remarked upon are the strange changes in our vocabulary. To fathom the shifting meaning of words, here is a guide to the new Obama lexicon.

Affordable Care Act: Mostly unaffordable, uncaring, and inactive.

Assault Weapon: Paint your .22 black and add a plastic handle.

Associated Press: Leakers who dared to challenge the White House monopoly.

Baby: Punishment for a mistake.

Benghazi: We won’t have any more because one video-maker is now in prison.

Berlin Wall: Analogous to the Cold War fence that kept out German illegal aliens from entering a free East Berlin.

Biden: Buffoonery after it becomes boring.

Buffett: He alone built that.

Carney: Ron Ziegler lives!

Cashing in: A practice finally ended when Hillary Clinton and Lisa Jackson left office.

Coal: A toxic rock that the crazy Chinese believe makes heat.

Corporate Jet Owners: Sort of like Air Force One.

Corpsmen: Zombies.

Courts: Revolutionary tribunals.

“Cowards”: Everybody but “my people.”

Debt: What debt?

Debt Ceilings: Only Senate cowards vote not to raise them.

Deficits: Ex-presidents incurred them.

Diversity: Endangered by locking up mass-murdering Maj. Hasan.

Drones: Sophisticated, humane military tools in the hands of the right commander in chief.

Enemies: Ours are to be punished at home, while courted abroad.

Erdogan: A valuable and trusted anti-Semite, racist, and religious bigot.

Filibusters: Unpatriotic obstructionism begun in 2007.

Genocide: An American crime unknown to the Germans, Hutus, and Turks.

Guantanamo: Virtually closed as promised.

Hawaii: Now in Asia.

Hope and Change: 2016.

Illegal Aliens: See undocumented workers.

Interest: It no longer exists.

Fast and Furious: More often a slow and methodical death.

Fat Cat: The new Al Gore.

Fifty-seven states: A trick question on Harvard Law School exams.

First Amendment: So long, glad to have known you.

Food Stamps: Never stamps and not always for food.

Fracking: Produces way too much unnecessary energy and money.

George Zimmerman: Does not look like the son Obama might have had.

George Zimmerman Trial: An indictment of white male America, when a female judge instructs an all-female jury in a case involving a Latino shooting an African-American — with pretrial input from an African-American president and attorney general.

Golf: A populist sport necessary to relieve the weekly tensions of average-guy presidents.

Global Warming: Along with rising seas, mostly ended by the president in 2009.

Green: Alternative sources of money.

IRS: Investigation of right-wing suspects.

Israel: A boring free-market democracy surrounded by rich cultural diversity.

Jihad: A sort of personal journey to be posted on Facebook.

Law: Can occasionally be enforced against the right people.

Leading from Behind: Or rather following from the front.

Lobbyists: Disappeared from government in 2009.

Lying: Speaking untruth except when doing so before the Congress and under oath.

“Make No Mistake About It”: Something neither “perfectly clear” nor “in point of fact.”

Media: The Ministry of Truth.

Money: You have made enough of it already.

Muslim Brotherhood: Secular, at least largely.

Muslims: Those who also worship Jesus but without the bothersome bible thumping.

NSA: Add another A and it would be an Islamic outreach agency.

Nuclear Option: To be outlawed, except in the Senate.

ObamaCare: Sort of read, sort of passed, sort of enacted, sort of ended.

One-percenter: Obama fundraisers.

Police: Act stupidly.

Profile: Typical white person.

Profit: Not the time to.

Race: Cowards never talk about it.

Recess Appointments: Hardly “damaged goods.”

Renditions: Valuable anti-terrorism protocols once George Bush left office.

Reset: Turning neutrals into enemies.

Revolving Door: Abuses ended by those like Peter Orszag.

Sequesters: Forced on fiscally sober presidents by uncaring, callous opponents.

Spiking the Ball: You avoid that by mentioning a dead Osama bin Laden ad nauseam.

Spread the Wealth: Tuition at Sidwell Friends.

Spying: OK on friends, suspicious when on others.

Taxes: Never were raised on those who pay more of them.

Tea Party: Presidentially referenced sex act.

Terrorism: Endemic among returning Iraqi veterans and Christian fundamentalists.

Transparent: Say it enough and it happens.

Typical White Person: Jorge Meza Zimmerman.

Undocumented Workers: Never had documents and not all have worked.

Unemployment Rate: It depends on why you want to know.

White Hispanic: Not to be confused with white African-American.

Wind and Solar: Like farm subsidies without the farm.

Workplace Violence: Murdering 13 soldiers while yelling “Allahu Akbar.”