by Frank James
On his “Change of Subject” blog, Eric Zorn suggests Illinoisans, and presumably Americans beyond the Land of Lincoln, stop snickering at good-government activists as “goo-goos, a put-down meant to suggest that they’re idealistic, head-in-the-clouds dreamers.
An excerpt:”A 1998 Tribune article described Mayor Richard M. Daley as “recoiling” when a reporter intimated that the term applied to him. “I wouldn’t say I’m a ‘goo-goo,’ Daley said.” “It’s insulting.”
Yes, it is. And the fact that we accept and use it as an insult is not just a symptom of the greater problem, but also a small part of it.
The slang we use for the operation of politics as usual–“machine”–signifies power and inevitability. While the slang we use to describe aspirations for honest government–“goo-goo”–signifies weakness and failure.”
It is indeed noble to aspire for clean government where bribes and pay-to-play aren’t factors. And it has long bothered me, too, that those who want a government to be both efficient and clean are derided almost as naifs. I have witnessed Chicago politicians use goo-goo as a synonym for chump.
That’s the kind of thinking that makes it easy for a Richard Nixon or a Rod Blagojevich to draw the lesson that politics is mostly about not getting caught.
I doubt if goo-goo can ever be turned into a term of honor. It sounds too infantile for that. But maybe we can make it the n- word of politics, a word that reflects badly on the user and not the person tagged with it.
Posted by Frank James on February 17, 2009 9:30 AM {jcomments on}
Source: The Swamp, February 17 2009