Newt Gingrich and the gaffe: what's in a word?
Where did the word 鈥済affe鈥� come from? We wondered this the other day after watching Newt Gingrich explain yet again why he didn鈥檛 mean it when he called Rep. Paul Ryan鈥檚 Medicare proposal 鈥渞ight-wing social engineering.鈥�
(Please 鈥� no e-mails saying we鈥檙e picking on poor Mr. Gingrich. We鈥檙e pretty sure the GOP presidential hopeful himself would say he wishes he hadn鈥檛 blabbed so much about the Ryan plan in the first place.)
Anyway, our trusty American Heritage Dictionary says 鈥済affe鈥� comes from an old French word for 鈥渉ook.鈥� The word 鈥済aff,鈥� without the 鈥渆,鈥� is still used in this context: It refers to an iron hook used to land fish.
That leads us to the political definition of 鈥済affe鈥� by the great wordsmith William Safire.
鈥淭o a politician 鈥� even one who can 鈥榮tand the gaff鈥� or abuse 鈥� it鈥檚 the dread mistake that pierces the psyche like the angler鈥檚 sharp hook,鈥� wrote Mr. Safire in a 2008 New York Times Magazine column.
Gingrich鈥檚 statement surely qualifies under that characterization. You think he wanted to spend days talking about whether turning Medicare into a voucherlike program is too big a jump? When then-candidate Barack Obama said that people in rural America 鈥渃ling to guns or religion,鈥� it was a gaffe, too. In some places, he hasn鈥檛 recovered from that one yet.
Safire distinguishes 鈥済affe鈥� from the less-serious 鈥渇luff.鈥� A fluff is a pure mistake, as when a barnstorming candidate says he鈥檚 glad to be in Iowa when he鈥檚 really in New Hampshire.
Then there鈥檚 鈥渂lunder,鈥� which is worse than 鈥済affe,鈥� according to Safire. A blunder (probably from the Old Swedish 鈥渂lundra,鈥� to 鈥渉ave one鈥檚 eyes closed,鈥� he says) is a strategic misstep that jeopardizes one鈥檚 entire enterprise. For Richard Nixon, Watergate was not just a gaffe, or even a crime: It was a blunder that ended his presidency.
We鈥檒l end with a bonus pundit tip. In Washington, many try to look sage by quoting another great journalist, Michael Kinsley, on this subject. 鈥淎 gaffe ... is when a politician tells the truth,鈥� Mr. Kinsley once wrote.
Do you think Gingrich was telling the truth, or at least what he perceived to be the truth, with his original Ryan comments? We won鈥檛 take a position 鈥� you can discuss it among yourselves.
