Tag Archives: Nicholas Kristof

Declaring war on this overused cliche

I am declaring a state of war with a phrase that is driving me stark raving mad … I’m tellin’ ya.

“At the end of the day” has emerged as the most annoying clichĂ© in the modern English language.

I just watched an interview on MSNBC’s “Last Word” show hosted by Lawrence O’Donnell, one of my favorite TV pundits/commentators. He didn’t use that phrase. O’Donnell apparently knows better.

Oh, no. It came from his guests: foreign policy wonk John McLaughlin and Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist who is known for his expertise on Far East issues.

I heard Kristof drop “at the end of the day” twice in the span of about 15 seconds while responding to a question from O’Donnell. It’s particularly disappointing to hear it come from Kristof who, as a journalist, I am quite certain would never write that clichĂ© in one of his NY Times columns.

(As an aside, I want to share with you that Kristof and I are “homeys” of a sort, as we both grew up in Oregon. I came of age in the Portland suburbs; Kristof grew up in the Willamette Valley.)

Here’s my theory on “at the end of the day” and its purpose for those who keep using it. It’s a setup phrase. I’ve concluded that whoever uses the phrase to preface a conclusion, it is to lend credence — a sort of gravitas — to whatever point the individual is trying to make.

“At end of the day, I am quite certain you have to stay hydrated during the hottest periods of the summer.”

Do you get it?

I do not yet know how this war I have declared will develop. I don’t have a strategy for waging it. I guess I’ll just start by pledging never to use it in this blog — except to call attention to its annoying quality; I also will pledge never to be caught dead saying it out loud.

If only these talking heads would toss the phrase into the crapper.

This is how Trump defines the word ‘best’

Donald John Trump loves the word “best.”

The president plans to negotiate the best trade deals, create the best job growth programs, surround himself with the best people.

It’s the “best people” boast that caught my attention when I saw this column from my home boy Nicholas Kristof in the Sunday New York Times. (By the way, Kristof grew up in the Willamette Valley, just south of my hometown of Portland, Ore.)

Kristof’s column talks about the president’s “triumph of incompetence” in the wake of the Affordable Health Care  repeal/replace debacle.

The columnist noted: “… Trump’s record of appointments over all suggests a lack of interest in expertise. I’m not sure that this is ‘the worst cabinet in American history,’ as a Washington Post opinion writer put it, but it might be a contender. The last two energy secretaries were renowned scientists, one with a Nobel prize, while Trump appointed (former Texas Gov.) Rick Perry — who once couldn’t remember the department’s name.

“Trump appointed his bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, to be ambassador to Israel. He chose Jason Greenblatt, another of his lawyers, to negotiate Mideast peace. He picked Omarosa Manigault, who starred with him on ‘The Apprentice’ and has a record of inflating her rĂ©sumĂ©, to be assistant to the president.

“The director of Oval Office operations is Keith Schiller, a former Trump bodyguard best known for whacking a protester. And the Trump team installed as a minder in the Labor Department a former campaign worker who graduated from high school in 2015, according to ProPublica.”

Here’s the rest of Kristof’s column

This is how Trump defines “the best people”?

Kristof does note that some of the president’s appointments have been top-shelf picks: James Mattis at Defense, Steve Mnuchin at Treasury and Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court, for example.

But he has populated many of his key staff posts with rubes and rascals. Oh, yes, and the “populist” champion who said he would fight for the little guy has surrounded himself with billionaires and multimillionaires associated with Goldman Sachs, the outfit he demonized throughout his presidential campaign.

I don’t mean to sound too familiar with someone I do not know, but … you go, Nick!

Covering a ‘charlatan’? Do so thoroughly

25kristof-master675

I totally understand where Nicholas Kristof is coming from as he implores the media to do a better job of covering a “charlatan” such as Donald J. Trump.

His column in the Sunday New York Times lays it out there.

The media must call the Republican nominee out in “real time” for the lies he tells about himself, his business ventures, his foes and the state of American standing in the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/how-to-cover-a-charlatan-like-trump.html?_r=0

Yes, by all means, do so with great vigor.

Tonight, though, as Trump stands for 90 minutes on that stage with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, the moderator has one job only: to moderate the commercial-free spectacle.

NBC News’s Lester Holt is an accomplished broadcast journalist and anchor. He will ask tough and probing questions of the candidates, who’ll be forced to answer each other.

As for the fact-checking, Holt will have plenty of help from fellow journalists watching from near and far to do what they must do: set the record straight for voters who will have to decide whether to believe the charlatan masquerading as a serious candidate for president of the United States of America.

This should be a fun evening. Don’t you think?