I tend to prefer “lickspittle” in describing the cream of the crop of the Bush apologistas myself.
Given the extraordinarily vast range of wrongdoings of the current administration, let alone the current party in power, and the reliability of someone here (oftentimes Scylla) on the Dope jumping without hesitation to defend this administration against any suggestion of wrongdoing, I’m frankly surprised that you were able to find only 56 instances.
I mean, you’ve played the lickspittle/apologist/what have you role far more times than that yourself.
Actually, I’m a little with Scylla on this one. When “apologist” is typed with a sneer, it irritates me. It also irritates me when someone divides the world along partisan lines, refusing to recognize any middle ground. rjung does both sometimes, I think.
“Apologist” seems to be just a polite and expeditious euphemism for a person who swallows any shit that Bush squeezes out, corn niblets and all.
It’s a bit of a hacky, quasi-partisan shot of rhetoric to keep saying “apologist” when it’s been misapplied to a person who supports one of the things that Bush may be doing and not the rest. Catch-all phrasings and quick labels don’t serve the rjung’s position well at all, but if he’s only doing it to the folks that are in the blind allegiance of this CIC, I see that the label fits.
If friend Scylla doesn’t like the word apologist, applied to those who would defend or justify our president’s supporters (two of whom are busy holding up his socks), he need not worry: the word will go away pretty soon, when there’s no one left whom it describes: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-08-bush-approval_x.htm. He can turn his attention to finding a word to describe all those formerly staunch supporters who suddenly discovered how much they can lose if the American people suddenly find out they’re being screwed. Given what we’ve learned about these folks’ basic philosophy and principles, I suggest “future supporters, but only when the time is ripe.” “Rats” is just too pejorative.
In the meantime, I concur with the OP’s wish to find a better, more precise, and above all new word or phrase with which to refer to those who still haven’t quite exhausted all possible permutations of the words “stay the course.” Those parts of the Bush campaign that haven’t been discredited and abandoned (just one doesn’t work for everyone, apparently) still presumably appeal to these guys and that’s how they should be described, according to their ideals and values. Homophobes, for example, or professional would-be heirs waiting for someone to die. Or people who just idiosyncratically hate our servicemen and want to see them destroyed for laughs. Or, given the twists most facts (up to and including the laws of thermodynamics) need, and the bends in logic required, in order to perform the mildest verb Scylla’s thesaurus contained, perhaps we need a neologism: neocontortionists is the one that I thought of first.
EddyTeddyFreddy, your example of a female minion looks neither hotter nor cooler, just scalier. If she’s been sunning herself in the desert, which looks plausible, she would, of course, be more granular.
I kind of like toady and lickspittle myself. Flunky would work, but isn’t quite strong enough. Ya gotta have a strong word, to convey the proper feeling of eeeeevulness.
Yes, but is it technically accurate? True conservatives prefer the term neo-Jacoban liberals when referencing the (former) Republican mainstream.
-Philosopho-historical class, plus a slam at them eevvill libruhls who are bent on destroying our freedoms.
Also, they come in pairs, with cute nicknames derived from that of the archvillain for that episode. Their primary use is to cause words like “Oof!” and “Zowie!” to appear on the screen when they are struck in the abdomen.
I do sympathize to a point with Scylla’s complaint. The thesaurus is certainly much too limited to keep him entertained. I’m puzzled as to why he isn’t concentrating his indignation over the much-more-limited selection of synonyms for “hypocritical”, however. Have we reached the point where that’s simply assumed, where simply saying “Republican” or “conservative” automatically invokes it as well?
I can’t go along with this pitting unless the OP can demostrate that the term “apologist” is being applied blindly-- ie, in situations where a reasonable argument is being made. I suspect that is the case, but I’ll leave it up to the OP to point out specific incidents. As it is, I say BFD that someone uses the same word a lot.
