[Ads-l] beltway

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Mon Nov 13 21:13:22 UTC 2017


A bit earlier for "inside the beltway":

Dallas Morning News, Jan. 28, 1979, p. 6A (Genealogybank)
"Carter Comes Out to Begin 2nd Half" [AP wire story]
When the week was nearly over, one aide involved in much of the planning
observed that "inside the beltway" -- the concrete ribbon of interstate
highway that circles that nation's capital and many of its suburbs -- the
budget and the State of the Union address are seen differently than they
are in the rest of the nation.

Also published the same day in other papers, e.g.:
Santa Fe New Mexican: https://www.newspapers.com/image/210930101/
Port Huron (Mich.) Times Herald: https://www.newspapers.com/image/210212635/


On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Bill Mullins found "Inside the Beltway" from November 1980.
>
>
> It can be found as early as September 1979, and perhaps by the person who
> may have coined it or popularized the concept.
>
>
> Richard Pettigrew served as "Assistant to the President" for streamlining
> beauracracy under Jimmy Carter.  When he resigned, he lamented the
> difficulty of what Trump would call "draining the swamp," or Hannity might
> term the "deep state," but what Pettigrew referred to as "the turkey farm"
> or the "'iron triangle,' that unholy alliance of special-interest groups,
> members of Congress and middle-level bureaucrats whose careers depend on
> the continued existence of a federal program, no matter how poorly run."
>
>
> He also explained "inside the beltway."  The editor included the full
> description, as though it was not then a current idiom:
>
>
> One of the first things he learned was that the nation was divided into
> two parts: "inside the beltway" (the beltway is the interstate highway
> circling Washington and its suburbs) and "outside the beltway."  Inside the
> beltway are Congress and the federal agencies.  Outsie the beltway is the
> rest of the United States.
>
>
> Tallahassee Democrat, September 23, 1979, page B8<
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/15094969/tallahassee_democrat/>.
>
>
>

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