"Astroturf"

[James A. Landau]

"Now operatives e-mail their dirt or counterdirt out at 6 a.m.  By breakfast,
the material is being parroted by talk-show hosts, bloggers, and letter
writers recruited by the Astroturf (i.e., phony grassroots) operations..."

Probably a nonce usage, unfortunately.  I hope it catches on, in which case
it will be a worthy candidate for WOTY.

source: Chris Satullo "Turning up partisan noise turns off voters"
_Philadelphia Inquirer_ March 28, 2004, page C7 (op-ed page)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
and now for a very odd usage:  "[President Bush's] guttural style---as when
he said he wanted Osama bin Laden 'dead or alive'"
(note on context: the article was about how Kerry's verbose speaking
style---"inability to put a period in his sentences"---was costing him.  The remark
about Bush was for comparison of speaking styles and was not a political
comment.)

I can think of several adjectives to use here, starting with "blunt" and
going on to "Gary Cooperesque", but "guttural"?

source:  John F. Harris "Kerry" _Atlantic City Press_ March 28, 2004 page A9
column 4 (this was a jump from page A1).  The article apparently is originally
from the _Washington Post_

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim Parish writes:

> > "The person who gets his name misspelled in print is not Zbignew
Brzezinski
>  > but Jon Smythe"
>
>  Isn't it "Zbigniew"?

Yes.  I had no idea how to spell "Zbigniew Brzezinski" so I did the safe
thing:  I checked on the Web.  Specifically I Googled on +Carter+"National
Security" and found the Web site www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1191.cfm, from which I cut
and pasted the name.  Guess what.

And this was in a posting about Murphy's Law!

To top it off, when I first typed this letter, I mispelled your name (I put
two r's in it).

(If it makes you feel any better,  www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1191.cfm turns
out to be a crackpot site, a fact which is not apparent from the Google
listing.)

         - Jim Landau (red-faced)