“Giving away the game”
By Jon Stewart’s comment that Chris Wallace was doing precisely that when he talked about Fox presenting a “counterweight” to NBC and the Times is a convenient way to describe assertions such as:
Over the past few years, the Tea Party movement has seen a dramatic rise in the number of conservative female activists across this country. From local to State and National elections, we see more and more female names on ballots. We see women leading many of the conservative social networking sites – large and small. We see them writing conservative books, blogging, tweeting, facebooking (has Webster added those yet as actual verbs?). We see them on TV providing spot-on punditry on the shenanigans in DC. We see them holding voter registration drives. We see them courageously and passionately speaking out at Town Hall meetings, Tea Parties, rallies, and conventions.
If I saw this on a student paper, my comment would be “What does the statement ‘[o]ver the past few years’ necessarily imply?” For some reason, I’m convinced most members of the Tea Party would respond to my question with the same dumbstruck expression as undergraduates who don’t know any better yet.*
*The important part, pedagogically, being the “yet.” They’ll learn. The Tea Partiers? They’ve demonstrated they’re determined not to.