Words Will Never Hurt Me – The Art of the Political Insult

In a city as mercurial as Washington DC words are often ascribed additional weight and meaning.  It is the rare politician that can cut a man down to size with a word or a turn of phrase.  Recently we’ve seen two men who have perfected this, Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney.

Clinton described Barack Obama and his presidential bid as “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”  With one phrase, Clinton managed to diminish Obama and his accomplishments.  Rather than conjure to mind images of Kennedy and Camelot, Clinton’s phrase brought forth vivid images of Alice in Wonderland.  Bill Clinton is a calculating man and he understood the weight of his words.  He even had to defend them as the mainstream media finally caught wind of the insult.

Dick Cheney managed to similarly impact Obama’s image with one word, dithering.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines dither as:”to act nervously or indecisively.”  When used by Cheney to describe Barack Obama’s stance on Afghanistan it carried more weight.  With the use of one word Cheney managed to portray Obama as weak, indecisive, and unfit to lead.  Dithering certainly doesn’t conjure to mind images of Barack Obama as a mythical figure who can do no wrong.

It’s a rare skill to be able to so dramatically impact one’s image with the use of merely a word or a pithy phrase.

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