September 14, 2017

"He likes us! He likes me, anyway. Here’s what I told him. I said, Mr. President..."

"... you’re much better off if you can sometimes step right, and sometimes step left. If you have to step just in one direction, you’re boxed. He gets that."

Said Chuck Schumer, heard on C-SPAN in a way that leads to headlines with the phrase "caught on open mic."

1. I hate the spelling "mic" (as previously explained here (and discussed at length in the NYT here)).

2. I think some of this hot-mike stuff is intentional. Seems exciting through.

3. I tend to think Schumer wants us to have this quote. It helps him, right?

53 comments:

rehajm said...

Nobody except leftie politicians still believes in the candid comment into the open mic scam...

Meade said...

Dancing with Wolves.

David said...

Pelosi the she wolf is in the dance. Lovely diss by Chuckie to Miss Nancy.

Sebastian said...

"If you have to step just in one direction" TDS sufferers aside, no one ever accused Trump of stepping just in one direction. Nor does Trump "have to," considering that he can go this way or that, or say this thing or that, and has. Since he doesn't know exactly which we he'll step until he steps, true believers , left or right, are bound to be disappointed.

David said...

Impeachment seems to be off the table. We may also have seen our last truly conservative Supreme Court nominee from Trump.

It would be really cool if he nominated his sister.

mccullough said...

"He likes me, anyway" is pretty funny.

Meade said...

"He likes us. He likes me, anyway. "

Wow. Talk about kicking poor Hillary when she's down. Mean, Chuck.

Matt Sablan said...

Sometimes you have to triangulate to get out of the box.

At least SOMEONE listened to Bill Clinton.

Bay Area Guy said...

If Schumer had any balls he would run for President against Trump -- out in the open, a battle of ideas, character and personality.

Of course, he won't though. He's a sneaky, inside operator, who makes deals behind closed doors, serves one coast of the bi-coastal elite, and tries to make the country as leftwing as possible.

Hagar said...

Trump is lightinng a firecracker under the GOPe in Congress.

Just as long as he keeps it in mind that Pelosi will impeach him if she gets her House majority back.

PB said...

What the f does Chuck know about moving right?

Rick said...

Anyone else get a Sally Field flashback?

We may also have seen our last truly conservative Supreme Court nominee from Trump.

Maybe but I doubt it. Big business can use certain regulation to their advantage, but even they don't like the left's vision of complete control. And Trump's is not big business.

Bob Boyd said...

Unsolicited advice from Chuck Schumer.

Ralph L said...

tic tick
mic mick

Bob Boyd said...

You put your right foot in,
You put your right foot out,
You put your right foot in
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey Pokey
And you turn yourself around,
That's what it's all about.

tcrosse said...

I lic ic.

tim maguire said...

Of course Schumer knows where the open mikes are on the senate floor. What a silly ruse.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

"Mic" is one of those holier-than-thou spellings, rather like people who insist that it's not "fracking" but "fracing." No doubt the same people insist that a refrigerator isn't a "fridge," but a "frige." I say, add letters as needed to make the intended pronunciation clear.

I note that the journalistic standbys -- "lede" for "lead," "graf" for "(para)graph" -- preserve this standard.

MikeR said...

Scott Adams wins again.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

I should add that if anyone is "misled" by the above, s/he is encouraged not to pronounce the word "meizzled."

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

You forgot your usual "Trump Derangement Syndrome" tag.

Bob Boyd said...

A snake can't do the Hokey Pokey, but it can teach.

Big Mike said...

Trump knows how to turn on the charm when he wants to.

Michael K said...

Trump and Schumer have known each other for years.

I suspect this has been a mating dance.

Nancy not so much.

FullMoon said...

Trump had Schumer on the "Apprentice".
Introduced as "My good friend.."

eric said...

So I told him, I said, "Don, Don, look, you have to step left sometimes, you know? You have to step left on Healthcare, and on the border, and taxes. Step left. But I promise, I pinky swear, you can step right all you want when it comes to the other issues. Ok? Just step left on these three little itsy bitsy tinsy winy issues and later, you can step right, ok? Deal? Deal!"

mac said...

Just stay tuned. That would be my advice in re Trump.....

jeremyabrams said...

He's just getting ahead of a popular parade so he can lead it. And he got the people who've been calling him a Nazi to sit down and chat with him as new chums. And Ryan is now occupying territory to Trump's right. Last week he was an ineffectual Nazi-loving boor, and today everyone is lining up to kiss his ring.

I'm loving it. It has no implications for the contours of the ultimate deal. But if the senate can't do anything on taxes or Obamacare in the face of this kind of high-profile dealmaking, then Ryan and McConnell are castrati.

Unknown said...

"Mic" is short for microphone. Not that difficult to comprehend.

autothreads said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
autothreads said...

Mike is short for Michael. Mic is short for microphone. Nobody in the audio engineering or music worlds spell it mike, nobody.

I produce an electric harmonica called the Harmonicaster (http://www.harmonicaster.com) and I compete with harmonica microphones. Believe me, they're called mics.

Searching on Google for "vocal mics" yields almost 700K results, in fact, Google wants to autocorrect vocal mikes.

Laslo Spatula said...

Mic Drop is not Mike Drop.

"Beastie Boys - Pass the Mic

I am Laslo.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

autothreads,

But what is the point of having an abbreviation that deliberately demands to be mispronounced? Why do it? Anyone seeing the word for the first time would say "mick." And maybe that's the point -- to sort out the cognoscenti from the rubes. Just as with "fracing," where you (in the know) put in the "k" after the "c," but the rubes don't. I just hate this fencing around with people who are a minutely small degree less intelligent than you are.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Michelle, the lack of a word has nothing to do with one's intelligence. Nothing whatsoever. With one's education perhaps, or it's the company one does or does not keep, but anyone can be exposed to a word that they can define and spell but not pronounce. Happens to me all the time. And if I told you my IQ you'd think I was boasting. So nothing to do with it. In my humble opinion.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Also though maybe I'm a word fascist, but there is a correct way and it is mic mic, and mike like my friend Mike is not the right way to spell it, and that's okay, it's wrong, but it's okay to be wrong. You want to do better next time is all, it's not a social blow is what I'm saying. The failure is in not learning and improving. You only need to learn this once rather than struggling to assert that up is down. It really is mic and not Mike.

OregonGuy said...

It has been said above, that "mic" is a term of usage amongst those who actually use microphones. If I e-mailed staff asking that there were plenty of mikes available for a remote broadcast, producers would be corralling persons of dubious backgrounds to achieve a result that was unintended.

When I see the abbreviated "mic," I hear "mike." In my head. Unless I'm reading aloud.
.

Ralph L said...

Call them micros then.

Gahrie said...

It has been said above, that "mic" is a term of usage amongst those who actually use microphones.

Seems to me there's a lot of mansplaining going on....

Laslo Spatula said...

'Meme' should be 'Meem'.

I am Laslo.

David said...

Mic is a means of voice amplification. Mick is a person ineligible for the Supreme Court by reason of religious beliefs.

Ralph L said...

My dad's doctor's office is in the small neighboring town of Mebane, NC, pronounced Meb'en, short e, after a local NC militia general from the Revolution. All of my grandfather's direct ancestors lived either in or within a few miles of it since that era, and we visited Grandma here often until I moved down from NoVa in 1992. Mom & older sister bought a lot of clothes there for decades. IOW, I've heard of it all my life.

The robocaller for the office pronounces it MEE' bane', and it always makes me laugh.
My late BiL did, too--once.

walter said...

"The comments from Schumer came the day after he and Pelosi dined with Trump at the White House on Chinese food."
I blame CHYNNAA!

Ralph L said...

'Meme' should be 'Meem'.
I am Laslo.

One's doggy, the other's missionary. You should have figured that out.

Amexpat said...

It's "mic" not "mike".

It's interesting that a language purist would find this unsettling, but accept the many common words that are a phonetic nightmare for learners of English. Language elitist also seem to have no problem with exotic spellings that come from a learned milieu (i.e ptolemaic) but thumb their noses at spellings that come from the hoi polloi.

comatus said...

"Imagine 2 Michaels, Mike and Mic: Which one do you want to have a beer with?"

Michael Jagger, Queen's Scout, singer of some pop group. "Said on a Hot Mic."

AllenS said...

Call it a micr. Pronounced Mike, you let everyone know that the r is silent. Eventually people will catch on.

Comanche Voter said...

Old Chuck You has his Sally Fields moment.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I just thought Chuckie was channeling Sally Fields' Oscar speech because he acts like an excitable little girl fairly often, although it's usually because he thinks there's an opportunity to grab guns or raise taxes. Funny to see him so girly over a simple meeting with Trump, but then people say Trump is very personable up close.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Some say Chuckie is really the more feminine one of the public Schumer humans. Although there is no hard evidence he likes black dick as much as Amy, since he dropped that patter from his act.

dreams said...

"I lic ic."

Me too, and mike is a guy.

raf said...

2. I think some of this hot-mike stuff is intentional. Seems exciting through.

Through and through? Some misspellings, er, alternate spellings, matter more than others.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I just hate this fencing around with people who are a minutely small degree less intelligent than you are.


BTW I want to say that I totally relate to what you are getting at here. Some people seem to think a fractional difference in ability or knowledge makes the lesser, the greater's lawful prey.

Bilwick said...

If we define moving "right" as moving in a pro-freedom direction, you can understand why State-shtuppin' Chuck wouldn't want Trump to move "too far" in a rightward direction. You wouldn't want freedom to break out, would you?