Still Worrying About the "ic"

Remember the post-State of the Union kerfuffle about the president's use of the term "Democrat Party" instead of "Democratic Party"? Believe it or not the LA Times devotes an entire article to that faux controversy, including interviews with "political locution" experts (whatever the heck that is):

WASHINGTON — Will President Bush put the "-ic" back in "Democratic"?

That was the hot topic around Washington on Monday after the president was asked why, during his State of the Union address last week, he referred to Congress' new "Democrat majority."

"That was an oversight," Bush said in an interview Monday with National Public Radio. "I'm not trying to needle…. I didn't even know I did it."

The issue of whether it is a slur to refer to the Democratic Party without the "-ic" has become an irritant. It comes at a time when Democrats and Republicans are trying to figure out whether they can work together, after years of fierce partisanship in the nation's capital.

Some Democrats said the president's usage in the speech — even though his prepared text included the "-ic" — sent the wrong message.

"It's a long-standing intentional partisan political slight," said Daniel Weiss, chief of staff to Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez). "It's kind of like flashing colors in a gang. It's code. It says, 'I'm one of you, I'm a right-wing conservative.' "

And experts on political locution say it's a deliberate, if ungrammatical, linguistic strategy.

"The word 'democratic' has such positive emotional valence … so they politicize it to use it as a term to describe a group of political rivals," said Roderick P. Hart, a professor of communications and government at the University of Texas in Austin.

"Democrat Party" is not common usage in Texas, Hart said, noting that the only people he had heard use it were "sitting Republican legislators."

It's good to see the newspapers taking on the difficult and substantial topics.