This evening I stumbled upon the California gubernatiorial debate on the radio during the opening statements. At one point the moderator claimed he would be “brutal” but was completely ineffective. Every question evoked a vacuous response from each candidate, nearly all of which completely ignored the question asked. Angelides in particular needs to be banned from saying “hard working” and “middle class”, which seems to cover annual household icomes from $18,000 to $500,000 — feel the vacuity! Both need to be banned from saying “education” (and what the heck does “fully funding” education mean? relative to what?).

But a response from Schwarzenegger was the most offensive. Asked what he would do to balance the state budget in the face of an economic downturn, he said “Talking about hypotheticals is not my style.”

Try using that in a job interview.

…

Please stop this insane deference to royalty. Start by addressing by name, not job title or former job title. Yes, president, vice president, senator, governor and the like are job titles, not peerages.