Thursday, August 14, 2008

Cliché Watch: Ray Charles On Their Minds



Earlier today, I noted that an anonymous source at the State Department adorably claimed that Dr. Ferragamo has "Georgia on her mind." And who can blame her? And, hey! Hey, that's really clever how you can use that song! I love it because it makes the news more like a musical.

To be fair, the whole Georgia thingy is all, like, totally such a big whoop that a lot of people have Georgia on their minds! Andrew Coyne at the dependably Canadian Macleans cleverly titled his ruminations Georgia on my mind, and so did Rick Brookhiser at the National Review, as well as Andy Sullivan at Reuters and Jay Tea at Wizbang. Oh, also the staff at Political Affairs Magazine, and Megan McArdle at The Atlantic, and Walter Winch at the Kansas City Star, and... um, I don't really need to go on, do I?

Thank goodness for Steve Huntley at the Chicago Sun Times to explain it all for the dull-witted, among us and to explain the joke and ruin it for everyone:

Mention Georgia a few days ago, and most of us would have thought of the state evoked so sweetly in "Georgia on My Mind," the classic tune sung by Ray Charles. Very few of us had heard of the South Ossetia province of Georgia, the nation with the misfortune to have Russia as its neighbor, until war broke out last week.


Oh, wow, I get it now! All of us except those rare superbeings who had prior knowledge of the ultra-obscure former Soviet republic thank you for bringing it all home.

Meanwhile, Human Events delightful Monica Crowley claims that Obama has "Georgia on his mind," but Politico counters that some guy named Jeff Merkely "doesn't have Geogia on his mind," which puts Mr. Merkely in a distinct minority, because John McCain "has Georgia on his mind," according to Reason Online, and so does Vladimir Putin, if we are to believe Australian journalists.

Seriously, though, if you want to find out more about the whole thing over there, go to Talking Points Memo, because they have a bunch of stuff about it because they, too, have Georgia on their mind.

OK, I'm going to give it a rest, now. Who's with me?

8 comments:

Diane Griffin said...

The sad thing is how that crap is necessary.

Anonymous said...

More Americocentric twaddle. No wonder we're in the dumpster.

Matthew Hubbard said...

If I know that Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote the song about a girl named Georgia, does that make me an elitist?

Anonymous said...

After Bush invaded Iraq without provocation, America lost the right to be picky with other invading nations.
Although for my money the Russians should also have a go at that dump Mississippi.

Anonymous said...

Of course, if Russia gone to war against one of it's former -istan republics, we wouldn't care.

Does McCain know that this Georgia has no electoral votes?

Anonymous said...

And crap, sorry, I do know the difference between "it's" and "its."

Steve said...

If I were Gladys Knight, I'd really be pippsed!

dguzman said...

I'll continue in the tradition of Steve's groan-inducing pun:

Well this Georgia's no peach!