Every schoolboy knows George Orwell’s famous essay on “Politics and the English Language” (1946), the point of which is that politics misuses language, and injures it in the process. You don’t have to search very far to find examples, especially here in America where the language of politics tends to be dominated by the vocabulary of Madison Avenue–or, in some instances, public relations.

You would have to search very far, for example, to find a Democratic response to this week’s Senate election in Massachusetts that isn’t an exercise in spin control: This is actually a blessing in disguise, the real message is more nuanced and complicated, this is a comparatively trivial event in the broad sweep of history. Of course, both sides engage in this kind of rhetorical sleight of hand, as if by second nature: It is the Democrats who are on display this week.