My Friends
Why can’t McCain stop saying “My friends”?
[I]n the last half-century it’s been exclusively resorted to by the worst orators in our presidential races.
What happened to change the phrase’s status in our language after Eisenhower’s 1956 speech? I have my own unprovable pet theory: It’s because the following year saw The Music Man debut on Broadway. Ever since, the phrase has been irrevocably associated with old-timey con men in straw boaters: “My friends, you got trouble right here in River City!“
2 comments
With a capital ‘t’ that rhymes with ‘p’ that stands for Palin
This is my favorite part.
“When McCain invokes ‘my friends,’ he’s making an appeal to the old days—the really old days.”
That sounds about right.