The Spinspeak Letter

Translation: fuzzball aimed at any voter who possibly may care (and polls show there are a lot of them) that deep down inside Kerry is a religious guy as proven by his often repeated reminder that not only did he serve in Viet Nam but he had an earlier tour of duty as an altar boy when attending prep school in Switzerland. “But” (wink, wink) Kerry fully “understands” and “recognizes” the right of so many of his religion-loathing supporters to think what they think about Bush and other Bible-reading Christians.

“…in your hands, hands that once picked cotton”* = fantasyland-Halloweentalk for if you don’t continue to support the Black Keep-Racism-Alive Industry you will be back on the ol’ plantation. (Technological note: picking cotton by hand was outmoded by machinery in 1871.)

but = negation codetalk fuzzball for here’s what I really, really think; therefore, forget everything that I just said and, in fact, anything that I said in the past (at least for the present).

* The Rev. Jesse Jackson, speaking at a Kerry rally at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church Oct. 10 in Miami. (AP)

ovalitis = cutespeak for presidential isolation from the world by the bureaucracy, relatives and the White House staff.

kitchen table = nostalgic classwartalk for the ratty old piece of furniture piled with unpaid bills that most Americans sit around beneath a single bare flickering light bulb hanging from the ceiling while tax cuts are given to the rich.

A plan = gift-wrap packagetalk for a “real,” usually secret or sparsely detailed, no-pain solution for any major problem. Such plans usually have little or no cost because they surely will be offset by canceling “tax breaks for the rich,” “eliminating government waste and inefficiency” and canceling handouts to the “special interests.”