Jul 30
Stick To The Script, Ben
I was puttering around today and heard this on CNN’s Crossfire. Tucker Carlson sets up the guest before the first commercial:
It is time now to convince the voters. Can John Kerry make his case tonight here in Boston? Will he finally tell us what he really thinks or will he take yet another great, bold controversial stand on behalf of children, happiness, and free ice cream?We’ll ask actor and Boston native Ben Affleck, one of the sharpest men in Hollywood and a friend of the charisma-challenged Democratic nominee.
Later, Affleck with co-hosts Robert Novak and Paul Begala:
AFFLECK: Well, I won’t say it’s bad for the country. A convention like this, I think it’s a hallmark of the modern media age and of modern politics, that people feel like they have to script everything so carefully and they have to craft and control stuff. It’s not—that aspect of it in particular is not to my taste, although, on the whole, I believe it’s been a very successful and innervating and exciting convention.NOVAK: Innervating. I agree it’s an innervating…
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: Yes, innervating.
(CROSSTALK)
AFFLECK: That’s a Bob Novak word of the day on the Internet.
BEGALA: Somewhere, President Bush is saying, Karl, Karl, what’s innervating mean?
Allow me to be of assistance. The word, apparently unknown to Affleck and Begala (not to mention CNN’s transcriber), is “enervating,” and it means,
1. To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of: the luxury which enervates and destroys nations (Henry David Thoreau). 2. Medicine. To remove a nerve or part of a nerve.adj. (-nrvt)
Deprived of strength; debilitated.
which seems an adequate description of the Democratic convention.
Novak (and more than likely Carlson, too) knew what the word meant and was preparing to have a bit of fun with it.
I guess that being one of “the sharpest men in Hollywood” is roughly equivalent to being a partisan hack like Begala. But that’s no surprise, is it?
5 Comments so far
What an innervative use of the term.
Love it love it love it! : )
Tucker Carlson is such a knob couldn’t CNN find anyone better than that dork? Oh wait they don’t want to.
I was going to snark about how annoying Tucker Carlson is, but now I can’t stop laughing about “inervating.”
The opposite would of course be outervating. Like in “I’m still in the outervating room because my appointment won’t be for a while.”