Radio Derb Is On The Air

By John Derbyshire

10/20/2012

This week’s broadcast is up on iTunes and Taki’s Magazine. Topics:

Sample, from the second segment:

Obama also skewed facts about himself, in a way now so routine nobody notices it any more. "I was raised by a single Mom," he said, as he’s said often before. We-e-ell: Obama was born in 1961. His mother was single from January 1964 to March 1965, a total of one year and two months. She was otherwise married until Obama went to college. It’s true that his father wasn’t around much. It’s also true, though, that his mother seems not to have been terribly interested in him; Obama was mostly raised by his grandparents. All right, it’s a small point, but irritating.

Not half as irritating, though, as Obama’s habit of referring to human beings in the plural as "folks." I just went through the debate transcript counting occurrences of the word "folks." There were 22 altogether, with the breakdown: Obama 17, Romney 3, moderator 2. So Obama is nearly six times as völkisch as Romney. I'll leave you to research for yourselves the history of the völkisch movement.

Obama isn’t alone with this usage. It’s chronic among our politicians, and not just among the lefties. Pat Buchanan, for example, says "folks" a lot. Could you all cut it out, please? We understand it’s meant to signal your solidarity with the common man, as you ride in your chauffered limousine from one 15-bedroom mansion to another, but it just comes over to me as condescending and phony.

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