October 10, 2003
California's Date with the Star
PatK has coined the very best term I've seen for our new California governor: der Gropenfurher. Perfect handle and a lot easier to spell than Schwarzenegger.
One of my friends noted that when DG (der Gropenfurher) had his press conference the other day he stole a John F Kennedy moment when he told the touching story about his daughter bringing him coffee. Being married into the Kennedy family, I guess he doesn't see any problem using one of the Kennedy legends to buff his own image. What we have here is a governorship that consists of all syle and no substance.
Did the White House have a hand in the California recall? Sure looks like it. The SF Chronicle reports that DG's transition team has a very strong sprinkling of the FOB (Friends of Bush). As CalPundit's excellent post yesterday showed, today's Republican party will do anything to win. The recall was one more win under their belt.
LOL! The only thing is, Mary, that for maximum effect, you have to spell it like the Germans would:
Der Gropenfuhrer
Someone who knows German better than I do will have to confirm for me if "Der" is the proper pronoun to use here!
But, no, I'm afraid I cannot take the credit for it. I think I may have read it in the "Arnold" commentary on Daily KOS the day after the election. Somehow it struck me as exactly appropriate and I've been using it ever since.
My feeling is that we all gave Shrub a pass when he wormed his way into office. So many of us figured, "Well, how much damage can such a good old boy do?" We sat back and sort of nervously tried to relax. And look what happened.
No, Ahnold gets no pass from me ... and obviously not from you either, Mary. We must all watch closely for signs of unravelling ... and then follow the threads.
Posted by: Pat K., California on October 10, 2003 11:09 AM"Der" would be the correct article, I believe. Führer is masculine. And how!
Posted by: NTodd on October 10, 2003 02:36 PMI dunno if he used it first but Steve Lopez used it in his article in the LA Times on Wednesday, October 8th.
Posted by: Kevin Thurman on October 10, 2003 05:32 PMgropenfurher bothers me. i think people throw around too many unwarranted comparisons to naziism and fascism. granted, schwarzenegger is at best a cheap demagogue, but demagogery doesn't necessarily a nazi make. nor does being austrian.
for the time being, at least, i like 'gropenator' better. we *do* know about his history with women, and gropenator does a good job of combining his misogyny with the fact that he was a viable candidate only because of his movie fame.
Posted by: CrowGirl on October 10, 2003 09:57 PMgropenfurher bothers me...
Fuehrer means "guide" or "leader", IIRC, and is not just a Nazi thing (alas, they co-opted the beautiful swastika as well). If the shoe fits...
Posted by: NTodd on October 11, 2003 08:34 AMActually, I don't know that I'd consider "Fuehrer" to be a co-opted word. Indeed, if you buy a printed guide to any given city in German-speaking countries, it's going to have the word "Stadtfuehrer" somewhere on its cover. Probably sounds more co-opted to non-German ears; swastika, on the other hand...
Posted by: Plunjerbunni on October 11, 2003 08:41 PMtest to post without email
Posted by: Mike on October 22, 2003 08:08 PMUh, actually, gropenfuhrer predates the Oct 8 LA Times article.
You can see a usage from Oct 5th on eschaton:
http://tinyurl.com/rz63
Looking back further, one can see it from the mysterious, no-email-addr poster called 'Mike' in the haloscan comments for this Eschaton (aka Atrios) Oct 3rd entry:
http://tinyurl.com/rz6b
I searched google on 10/10 or so (when I first heard of the LA Times editorial) and saw only a couple pages of hits. Some were years old, referring to a scratchbuild model kit (no image found), another's context was indeterminate, but AFAIK, the Oct 3rd comment on Atrios was the first usage in connection with Ahnold. Now of course google shows 800+ hits.
And now of course it's made Doonesbury.
Posted by: Mike on October 22, 2003 08:17 PM