5 Feet of Fury

The Chestnut Diet: How To Cut Cliches Out of Your Writing

My new piece at PJMedia:

During my second afternoon at the NRO Summit, mid-way through yet another congressman’s address, I mused about how easy it would be to create a Right Wing Red Meat Speech Generator:

First, plug in some vintage Reagan and Buckley quotations.

(Hell, mix ‘em up and see if anyone notices: “I’m from the Boston telephone directory and I’m here to help you…”)

Then sprinkle on some “hard working Mexicans.”

Squeeze in a reference that lousy poem carved onto an old French statue.

Finally, make “America is the greatest country in the world” a default value.

I ask you:

Why do professional conservatives pay speechwriters big money when some basic java script could produce the same mediocre results — a string of empty calorie cliches?

I’m not the only one complaining about this…