That was a close one

I’m really glad John Kerry didn’t win. The reasoning for this statement actually has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the stupid American media. Already towards the end of the election they were starting to refer to John F. Kerry as JFK II. Kerry obviously welcomed the comparison: he was a Catholic elitist Democratic candidate from Massachusetts, just like John F. Kennedy. In fact, it would appear that his whole life has been modeled after the revered former president—his service in the military, his time in the Senate. Just like former president Bill Clinton, John Kerry has stated that meeting John F. Kennedy when he was young was a defining moment in his life. (I will leave comments about the habits of former presidents Clinton and Kennedy for another day; it’s just too easy of a target.) The comparison between Kennedy and Kerry was obvious, and I was fine with that. But by reelecting George W. Bush the nation narrowly avoided another annoying catch phrase that could have plagued the nation for the rest of the decade.

The first of these flagrant abbreviations was Y2K. Oh, how I hated that phrase. It was everywhere in the end of 1999. It stemmed from a rather minor worry about computer glitches (thanks again, Microsoft) and escalated to panics about failed banking systems and terrorist attacks that had half the country rushing to buy a year’s supply of bottled water, batteries, and peanut butter. I hated the phrase Y2K. The perpetrator of this term would had been horsewhipped and hanged long ago had he not fled the country. He is rumored to be hiding somewhere in Southern Argentina, but Interpol has no definite leads. Mercifully, the dawn of the year 2000 led to almost zero computer glitches and no terrorist attacks, (although my dad did throw the breaker in the basement at the stroke of 12 and we were fooled for about 30 seconds) so we all got on with our lives and Y2K disappeared from the headlines. Many foolish people, myself included, breathed a sigh of relief that we had seen the last of that silly coined phrase.

Then came 9/11. This is a little less absurd because we really do refer to dates that way. But I still don’t like it. I think it encouraged the media to spin out these silly words for anything in the news a lot. I really didn’t know what 9/11 was until I got back from my mission. If you had asked me what it was I would have told you it was a Porsche. I of course knew about the attacks, but being spared from the American media’s inane nattering, I didn’t realize they had given the even such a cutesy nickname. I actually remember reading a letter from a friend and she talked about not being able to go to London because of “911”. I read it like 9-1-1, like the number you dial for emergency response. Now they even named the commission the “9/11 Commission.” Even though this is the least offensive of the nicknames, in some ways it is the worst because it will stay with us for longer than all the others.

Then there was J.Lo. I really disliked that one. Jennifer Lopez certainly has a large fanny, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call her an “event,” much less something that merited a catch phrase. When she and Ben Affleck got engaged the nickname got thrown around even more frequently and it drove me even crazier. It’s not a far drive, I assure you. Then, horror of horrors, they coined a new term by calling them “Beniffer.” I realize they were on so many newsstands that they may have perhaps warranted a name for the collective entity they formed, but I just couldn’t stand another silly word thrown around on the cover of People magazine in the checkout lines. Thankfully, their engagement was already going down the tubes at that point and they broke up before the term really caught on. I had nightmares about other celebrity couples being similarly labeled, like “Bradiston” or “Cruisencruz” Ugh.

So we dodged the bullet on the JFK II name. It would have been worse than all the aforementioned names combined, because on any given day the president is in the headlines for half a dozen issues. I’m not saying that George W. Bush isn’t without peril; there’s always the chance that the media will pick up on the “W” nickname. But he’s gotten through four years without that one really sticking, so hopefully he’ll get through four more. Forget the job approval ratings or the economy. Avoiding an absurd nickname is the real test of a presidency.