Obama new language Obamish

It has taken some time and work, but our president has invented a new language. "Obamese" and "Barackish" aren't quite right, so let's call it "Obamish."

Obamish uses English, but it does so to confuse most listeners while really communicating with only a few. Obamish is a language based on lies -- but, when it's effective, it's a language that establishes plausible deniability around the implementation of politically risky, far-left policies. Obamish is an arrogant language, premised on a need-to-know custodial view of the governed. Paul Kengor claims:

Obama and Axelrod are geniuses at coming up with words and phrases that seem vague and benign to the larger population ... but which resonate with a hard left that understands the deeper meaning completely.

The mainstream media is a critical partner in the successful use of Obamish. With the media's collaboration, a "nothing to see here" veneer is applied to the Obama administration's newsworthy birth and development of radical policies.

Only when the president is good and ready is the veil of obfuscation lifted. At that point, it is hoped that the public sees the underlying radical move as an insurmountable fait accompli, not as a wacky, unacceptable, and opposable policy proposal.

Obamish is typically deployed in up to three phases: tip-off, implementation, and revelation. Tip-off is marked by imprecise and often verbose nonsense. The deliberate misdirection of Obamish's tip-offs aims both to signal the base to another policy in motion and to result in minimal reporting of that policy. Obamish's implementation phase is the blatantly dishonest phase, during which it is critical to watch not what the president says, but what he does. Tip-off and implementation are the quiet phases, requiring a collaborative media and recognizable only by Obamish-attuned lefty cognoscenti. Obamish's last phase, revelation, is the go-public phase -- which, if it happens, occurs as a low-key bureaucratic acknowledgement or a major pronouncement.

Four policies provide good Obamish case studies. The president's gay marriage policy is a finished study; the president's restriction of religious freedom and publicly funded abortion goal are two in-process examples; and, finally, the administration's yet-to-be recognized goal of drug legalization shows Obamish in its early stages.