March 19, 2003

Annoying War News Clichés, v. 2.0

Starting my list now:

  1. Shock and awe. Reaction so far: "Where is the big kaboom? There was supposed to be a big kaboom!"

  2. double digits -- as in, of missiles, explosions, raids, times "double digits" was said.

  3. Weapons of mass destruction. Well, yeah.

  4. Pictures of some flood-lighted monument-type building against a dark night sky, while a newsperson over a crackly speaker says "what is happening or appears to be happening is _____" (Fill in the blank.)

  5. What the British reporter in Baghdad is seeing outside of his hotel window. "A car just went down the street. There are some vehicles parked outside..." Translation: "I am so very bored right now when are the Yanks going to start blowing stuff up so I can start my spiel?"

  6. Embedded. This is going to be an unfortunate one. It was already a cliché when it referred to content in computer documents. Now it refers to reporters assigned to various military units. Whatever happened to "assigned"?

  7. "War on Iraq." I wish they would just call it what it is: "War on Saddam Hussein and His Unpleasant Mafia-like Brood." After all, Iraq itself hasn't really done anything to us.

  8. And this variant of the above: "Target: Iraq." Come on, that's like saying your target is the wall when the object you are trying to get the dart to connect with is the round colored disk that's hanging from it. It really should be "Target: Saddam Hussein and His Unpleasant Mafia-like Brood." But no, they have to be circumspect, because coming right out and saying that we are targeting a certain group of persons is somehow worse than pretending we actually have a quarrel with the entire country and population of Iraq, which does not happen to be the case.

  9. 1:18am, NBC: "All is quiet on the western front right now--" Oh shut up.

  10. "It has begun." Blogs, lots of them. Stop it, you guys, or I'll make you all read Atlas Shrugged, including all the speeches.

  11. "Concern." "Dissent." Stick a fork in these two words; they're done.

  12. "Saddam Hussein is a Bad Man." I've not only seen this phrase in some news articles, I've seen this used in a lot of blogs. A lot of blogs. Here's what first comes to my mind when I hear the phrase So-and-so is a Bad Man: "...You say Shaft is a bad man? Shut your mouth!" I do not think of Saddam Hussein when I hear the phrase "So-and-so is a bad man." However, when I hear the phrase "torturing, murdering, baby-killing, countryside-destroying genocidal maniac," Saddam's face is brought to mind. You guys who want to express your ire at him may want to use something like that instead.

  13. Damn! They're coming thick and fast -- not only are they doing an entire special segment on number 1, Tom Brokaw just used "the drumbeats of war" and "shock 'n' awe" in the same sentence. And the female reporter used "innocents." And they just finished a segment on possible chemical warfare, though at least we didn't have to watch a reporter ineptly trying to put on a gas mask. Well they've had twelve years to practice. All on NBC tonight.

  14. "Potential threats to the U.S." As in "there are still no clear indications of --" It's a cliché now. Really, how much more explicit did Hussein have to be? Even he didn't think he had to draw us a map. Face it -- he's not the Unabomber, he's not going to mail a two-thousand page manifesto to the New York Times and demand that they publish it.

This list will be added to as new ones appear.

Posted by Andrea Harris at March 19, 2003 11:26 PM
Comments

I admire your clever strategy of numbering every item "1."

"Embedded" is much easier to stomach than "efforting." As in "Stone seems to have accidentally sat on the camera, but we are efforting to pull it out of his butt."

Posted by: Steve H. at March 19, 2003 at 11:52 PM

Huh. It's supposed to be a numbered list. I'm using Textile formatting -- I think it's reacting to all the other formatting code. Okay, I'll make it something else.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 19, 2003 at 11:58 PM

Here's some more:

"Deeply saddened" -- meaning I'm f*cked and I have to find a way to blame Bush.

The morons at CBS are trying to figure out how much this war has costed by calculating the cost of the munitions. As if that was what mattered! It goes without saying that their calculations are woefully bad as well.

Posted by: Charles Austin at March 20, 2003 at 12:18 AM

I guess they can't take off their shoes on teevee. (To count. Okay, bad joke. I need some coffee.)

Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 20, 2003 at 12:37 AM

They forgot to load the X36 explosive space modulator, that's why there's no big kaboom

Posted by: narciso at March 20, 2003 at 01:22 AM

I noticed Dick Cheney a few days ago called it the war "for" Iraq.

Posted by: Joanne Jacobs at March 20, 2003 at 02:23 AM

Hehehe, good list! Gato told me you were compiling one. I noticed many, many reporters using the phrase "target of opportunity" last night...

Posted by: Erik at March 20, 2003 at 09:02 AM

The threat of being made to read all the speeches in Atlas Shrugged is in violation of the Geneva Convention.

Posted by: Kevin McGehee at March 20, 2003 at 10:37 AM

Well, no wonder there's no kaboom if they're trying to use an X36 explosive space modulator! You only get the kaboom with the Illudium Q36 explosive space modulator!

Posted by: wheels at March 20, 2003 at 11:16 AM

Great. Coke vs. Pepsi wasn't bad enough, now we're gonna have the explosive space modulator wars.

Posted by: Kevin McGehee at March 20, 2003 at 01:42 PM

1) "Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!"

Posted by: David Perron at March 20, 2003 at 01:56 PM

When did Lieberman say that?

Posted by: Kevin McGehee at March 20, 2003 at 05:20 PM

Closing all the Wal-Marts and Kmarts in Iraq- they will become Targets.

Posted by: Tassled Loafered Leech at March 20, 2003 at 06:49 PM

My most-hated cliches haven't arrived yet:

"Delivered ordnance" for "bombing"

"Neutralized" for "destroyed"

"Senate Minority Leader" for "fucking Commie asshole" (oh wait, that's a political cliche)

Posted by: Kim du Toit at March 21, 2003 at 12:09 AM

Hm -- I could have sworn I heard "neutralized" at one point, but I can't be sure. I made the mistake of leaving Peter Jennings on for a second too long and my brain went numb. It's only temporary... I hope.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at March 21, 2003 at 12:12 AM

I think in a few weeks we're going to be hearing the word "hindsight" far too much. As in, "In hindsight, Kofi Annan says the inspectors should have pushed harder." Or, "Now that Saddam Hussein has unleashed the VX and anthrax he'd never accounted for and tens of thousands of Kurds, Iraqis, Jordans and Israelis have died, Chirac says that in hindsight he would have backed the US position if he'd read the UN inspectors' reports more closely."

Posted by: Venomous Kate at March 21, 2003 at 01:10 AM

I'm waiting for "it's going too well."

Posted by: Kevin McGehee at March 21, 2003 at 10:16 AM

The last time I read Atlas Shrugged ( three years ago or so) I was surprised at how current many of the speeches sounded. I still can't make it through that John Galt radio address, though.

Posted by: The Tortured Artist at March 21, 2003 at 05:16 PM

(wow...how did I manage to miss this?)

Regarding nos. 7 and 8: It really pisses me off that this Iraq whatever-you-want-to-call-it is being referred to as a separate "war" at all. It's part of the War on Terrorism. (which BTW also needs a better name)

Posted by: Lynn S at March 23, 2003 at 06:14 PM