My Face Is In Hot Scones

by digby

We all know by now that “don’t tase me bro” has become the catch phrase of the year, but The Phoenix has generously gathered all the year’s catch phrases so we tremendously uncool types will know what the hell the kids are talking about — and so we can acutely embarrass them by actually trying to use them in front of their friends.

The surprising thing to me is that quite a few of them are political or tangentially political. Here’s an example:

CATCH PHRASE “My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo.”
ORIGINAL CONTEXT Mitt Romney’s absurdist punch line during the GOP candidates’ debate scored a direct hit on the brainstem of the Republican base: approval rumbled through the seats like flatulence, and soft pink hands flew together in eager applause. If anything, the line was too good: so smoothly did it breach the bounds of sanity, one was left wondering why the Mormonator chose to stop there. Double Guantánamo? Why not triple it? Why not quadruple it? Why not build a waterboard the size of New Hampshire and float it out into the Gulf of Mexico? Why not clip electrodes to the gonads of every man in America right now, today, just in case? Doesn’t anybody round here have any vision, for Christ’s sake?
USE IN EVERYDAY LIFE AS a vote for monstrous excess. A variation on “go for broke.”
EXAMPLE “I’m really glad you agreed to get high with me tonight, Roger. But what do you think we should use: this big pile of cocaine or these bags of heroin?”
“My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo.”

Maybe McCain should have responded to Romney’s insane ramblings with “don’t tase me bro” or “I’m feeling very vulnerable right now” and take a stab at the youth vote. (I actually think he got the best one-liner of the campaign off so far which wasn’t “I was tied up at the time,” but rather the set-up — “I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event.” Made me laugh, and I can’t stand the guy.)

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