TGIF!
Here is a good way to start your weekend – a hilarious post called the “Balloon Juice Lexicon.” It’s really a dictionary of sorts of leftie blogosphere terms, some specific to Balloon Juice. Here’s a couple of my favorites:
Center-right nation – A frequent refrain among right-leaning commenters that successfully penetrated mainstream opinion leaders (see ‘serious people’) after the 2008 election, this was an attempt to mitigate the repudiation of the GOP by the electorate. Despite getting hammered in the Presidential election, the House, and the Senate, right wing pundits would insist that regardless of the massive Democratic gains and the shift to the left, this is still a “center-right nation.” To this day, we have no knowledge of any of the stenographers in the media refuting this ludicrous assertion. A final point of irony- the folks insisting the nation was still center-right to diminish the magnitude of Obama’s win were frequently the people who trumpeted Bush’s razor-thin wins as “clear mandates.” See also, puke funnel and stenographers.
Glibertarian – a portmanteau of glib and libertarian, a person who affects libertarianism when it’s convenient. Used by those not ready to admit that all libertarian philosophy can be boiled down to “I got mine, fuck you”, or by those attempting to be polite to libertarians.
Shrill – Telling the unpopular truth. The polar opposite of a pundit whose slavish devotion to mainstream approval leads him or her to frequently wrong conclusions (see ‘serious person’). Someone dubbed ‘shrill’ can be reliably accurate but nonetheless ignored for steeping outside the “acceptable” range of political opinion (see ‘Overton Window’). Particularly hated by Villagers, Beltway insiders, and ‘serious people’ because their example makes it impossible to claim that everyone believed a point that turned out to be wrong (e.g., WMDs in Iraq). Notable shrill people include Howard Dean, Al Gore, and Paul Krugman. The correct usage takes the form of “Paul Krugman is shrill.” It should be noted, however, that Michael Moore is not shrill, but rather, Michael Moore is fat.