In the race between “sticky fingers” Conrad Burns and “goofus-doofus flat-topped” Jon Tester, the word “deliver” is used more than a puke rag at a frat party.
You've heard it before: “Jon Tester has DELIVERED for Montana. Who has Burns DELIVERED for? Why, corporate thugs and criminal lobbyists and evil, satanic villains with thin little mustaches who blow their noses on Boy Scout kerchiefs.”
I've never seen such abuse of the English language since “access” became a verb. And also, your continual slaughter of the word “safe,” as in “Drive safe!” You don't “drive safe,” people, unless you actually have a motorized, street-legal, square metal box meant for locking up valuables. You “drive safely.” It's called a freakin' adverb. Look it up sometime.
So Burns and Tester both say they DELIVER better than the other. It's like they want you to believe they tool around the state in Humvees stuffed full of wadded up $50s, tossing around cash like a drunken Irishman flinging green saltwater taffy in an Irish pride parade.
“Hi, I'm Jon Tester, and I'm out DELIVERING for you! See, I was just out there tendin' to my crops, when suddenly I slipped into this giant pit full of money. Well, golly-be, Jon Tester, you're a lucky guy, I says. So I'm out doing my DELIVERY rounds, and noticed you could use some cash to fix up that there school. Here ya go! And, ahem Š you know, it's polite to tip.”
“Deliver” means only one thing in the political context: “Moving forcibly extracted taxpayer money from one place to another.” That's it - lousy zero-sum shell game played with your money. Whether they're redistributing wealth or buying bombs to blow people up, politicians just herd cash. Ain't no big secret to it - and it's nothing to be proud of, either. In fact, it all just kind of sucks.
You don't go to the post office to “deliver” money to the IRS every April 15, do you? “Hi! I'm here to drop off my money for its final destination. I hope it gets delivered on time!” And what was that Boston Tea Party all about, violent opposition to delivery without representation? Give me no delivery or give me death?
You know who really DELIVERS? Pizza delivery drivers. They deliver a lot. Go ahead and ask a pizza delivery driver, and he'll tell you: “My car was brand-new when I started this job, and now it's a smoking hunk of loose bolts and sheet metal because I've delivered 10,582 pizzas in it.”
I should know, too. I DELIVERED pizza for seven years in college. And I went through four cars while sucking down two dump trucks of Camel Filters. Now THAT'S DELIVERING.
What bothers me is that most of you buy this language from these saps. You're out there campaigning for Burns or Tester, saying “Yay! My candidate is a great DELIVERER! He's so going to, like, totally DELIVER! That opposing candidate couldn't DELIVER a newborn calf with a rope, a Slip-N-Slide and a bucket of Vaseline.”
Well, go ahead, deliver yourself on down to the voting booth to deliver your vote to the deliverest deliverer.
I'm going to deliver five beers into my face, maybe have a slice of pizza.
I'll get it from a real deliverer.
Reach Jamie Kelly at 523-5254 or at jkelly@missoulian.com.
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