You've heard of the
GWB drinking game, right? That's where you take a swig of your favorite elixir every time Shrub says "terror" in a speech.
Well, Slate notes how many times McCain says "my friends" in his.
MF'er -- Why McCain can't stop saying "my friends."
Quote:
By Paul Collins
Updated Monday, Sept. 1, 2008, at 7:05 AM ET
"My friends," John McCain recently informed a crowd, "we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana."
McCain's meeting with parishioners at Rick Warren's Saddleback presidential forum certainly was a friendly one: He referred to "my friends" another 11 times. In the week leading up to Saddleback, the senator also friended, among others, a crowd in York, Pa., ("Two years ago, I traveled to South Ossetia, my friends"); workers at a locomotive factory in Erie, Pa., ("… my friends, look at the events that are transpiring in Georgia"); and Iowa state fairgoers ("My friends, I'm all in favor of inflating our tires, don't get me wrong ...").
John McCain's insistent recourse to "my friends" is easily the most mystifying verbal tic of any politician since Bob Dole's out-of-body presidential campaign of 1996, which featured Dole's not entirely reassuring promise that "Bob Dole is not some sort of fringe candidate." Like Dole's use of the dissociative third person—or illeism, a propensity also shared by Elmo and the Incredible Hulk—this year's obsessive invocations to friendship invite scrutiny.
...
John McCain wants to be your disingenuous friend. Check the
CNN transcripts.
I am a conservative, my friends, a proud conservative ... -- Oh, and a womanizing, potty mouth.
We need to do something about that, my friends. We need change and we need it now. Yeah, right. And you want us to vote for you -- the repub old guard, who only serves to promote more things that won't change-- why?
Thank you my friends, thank you so much for helping me remember what it means to be a public servant ... -- In order to serve big oil lobbies and such.
