Now that the 24-hour reality show news networks have cut costs to the point that they're blissfully free of any actual reporting, the dominant media narrative of the 2008 presidential campaign has focused on parsing the words of the candidates and their surrogates. Words, we are frequently reminded, are important.
Words are important to the MSM, of course, not because they convey ideas (that would be incredibly boring) but because they can be used as weapons to beat the candidates over the head. This is way more fun, as can be seen by comparing Grand Theft Auto to The Anatomy of Melancholy. Under these rules, the winner of the race is the one who has the least advanced case of hoof-in-mouth disease, as diagnosed by the punditing class.
As a public service to help you follow the campaign at home, I offer a scientific (i.e., jargon-filled) method to assess the inevitable damage from talking all the time--the Spooner scale, a sort of verbal Richter scale.
Feel the earth move, after the jump.
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