Andrew Cline, in an otherwise interesting and relevant note on Our Only President’s recent report on the State of the Union, finds it interesting that presidential speeches consisting in the main of enumerations of policies are called laundry lists, rather than grocery lists, “especially considering the political capital metaphor and all the money entailments”. I, too, find it interesting.
Presumably, the idea behind the laundry list is that it’s a list of items I own that I give to the laundry expecting to get them back. I should point out that I get a laundry list only when I send things to be dry cleaned; my experience with more ordinary laundry is that I am charged by the pound and have no way of knowing if it comes back missing a few items. So my laundry lists tend to consist of three or four things, each highly valued, rather than as the metaphor would have it an interminable enumeration of miniscules. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is that the laundry list is a list of things I own, which I have let out of my sight for a while so they can be attended to and returned.
Which is where the metaphor gets a bit icky. The items on my laundry list are soiled and stinky; they are returned clean and folded. Is the President airing his dirty laundry in the speech? Does he expect the Congress to ‘clean’ his policy ideas, improve them, make them presentable again? Is it the job of Congress to put starch in the President’s shorts? Or to lose collar buttons?
Grocery lists have a more common touch than laundry lists, anyway. These days sending your laundry out is a sign of effete and citified degeneracy. Shopping for your own groceries, on the other hand, is so genuine that it was easy to hang an “out of touch” frame on Our Only President’s father with a spurious story about his unfamiliarity with supermarket scanners. I think it’s fair to say that people identify more with someone carrying a grocery list than a laundry list; the cultural image of the two doesn’t seem to overlap. The character of Rachel on Friends was discovered to be unfamiliar with doing laundry, and it’s hard to imagine her competently grocery shopping. Roseanne, on the other hand, washed her own clothes, her kids’ clothes, and her husband’s, and besides bought her own groceries.
Anyway, another difference between grocery lists and laundry lists is that the list-holder doesn’t own the groceries on it, but does own the laundry. If we accept the grocery list metaphor, the President is shopping for things the Congress owns, and although it’s the President with the capital, it’s the Congress with the goods. Admittedly this is a more accurate metaphor than the laundry list, but it’s one I would think the President would want to avoid. On the other hand, the items on a grocery list are new, and they are an important part of this nutritious breakfast. I think if I were speaking for Congress, I’d prefer to be a grocer than a launderer, but if I were speaking for the President, I’m not so sure.
Of course, neither gets to choose the phrase. The President’s spokesbeing is unlikely to describe the speech as either a laundry list or a grocery list; such speeches are always stirring and visionary. The press hangs the label on. The fact that journalists still use the laundry list phrase is perhaps indicative of how out-of-touch they are, their own effete and citified degeneracy, and of course that some newspapermen are living in the 1930’s novel of their minds.
Just rambling. Oh, and I think I’ll probably pass on the SotU, myself. I haven’t heard it or read it, and as far behind as I am on other stuff, I think I’ll just let that particular sleeping dog lie.
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.
I find much of value in your discussion, and I don’t disagree with it in the slightest. It is illuminating and informative, and makes me think about a common phrase that I’ve never paid attention to before. Thank you.
Almost nothing on the State of the Union laundry list is non-economic; in fact, most of the items will have enormous economic impact. If one were to steal money from the poor and middle class and give it directly to the wealthy, that would be easy to trace. If one instead routes the money from the poor and middle class through an intermediate step or steps, and then gives most of the money to the wealthy (while retaining perhaps a small cut), it becomes more difficult to see exactly where the money is flowing. (And when you’re trying to hide it from either voters or the media, you’re not dealing with the most sophisticated of investigators.) That’s how money laundering works.
This administration has a well-known penchant for secrecy and a tight inner circle. Everyone has nicknames. They interact only among themselves, and they view disloyalty as treason. The administration keeps double sets of books, keeping various activities like the war in Iraq or the privatization of Social Security off the public budget books. Bush kissed Lieberman on his way out of the State of the Union. How much more can they imitate the Mafia of the movies? Viewed in that context, it becomes a little easier to refer to the government’s economic activities as money laundering. And a laundry list seems all the more apt a term.