Like much of America, I tune into Meet the Press on Sunday mornings.
This morning Joe Biden was the guest on Meet the Press with relatively new host David Gregory.
They talked about a myriad of topics but I had trouble listening…because Joe Biden kept commanding me to “Look!”.
I wrote about this previously in a post entitled A Battle of “Looks”: McCain Vs. Obama.
Joe Biden must have said “look” at least 100 times in the show this morning. Joe Biden has been in government for decades now and has risen to the role of Vice-President.
Doesn’t someone at this level have advisers? Certainly, the Vice-President has a multitude of advisers who were watching him on Meet the Press this morning.
Many of these advisers must have been English majors in college. After all, English Majors have no idea what to do after college and thus often choose politics because this is the principle career in which you can throw all the fancy words you learned in a blender, shake them all up, and spit them out in eloquent way that sounds great but says, and commits you to, nothing.
It must irritate these little English majors that their man is on television saying “look” every 3 seconds. It irritates me.
As I mentioned when I wrote about politicians who say “look” all the time, it is not just their overuse of the command that annoys me, it is the fact LOOK is the wrong word to use:
Look, stop telling me to look when what you really mean is to listen. And for that matter, don’t tell me to listen either, because I’ve already tuned in; I’m listening.
But LOOK!, I finally stopped listening.
After Joe Biden said his 100th “look”, I just turned off the TV.
Enough!
If you want me back, and you still feel the need to begin every sentence with the same word, at least use the command “LISTEN!”.
You’ll still come off like a pompous arse treating me like I am a stupid child but at least you’ll be using the right word!
Richard Cummings
Get your copy of his latest book entitled Obvious Conclusions, stories of a Midwestern emigrant influenced and corrupted by many years living in San Francisco and abroad. It just received its first outstanding review "...reminiscent of David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs" on Amazon UK.
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