“Surely Professor Warren is clever enough to see the proverbial writing on the wall,” Bloomberg View columnist William D. Cohan wrote in the site’s current lead story, urging Elizabeth Warren to stop pursuing confirmation to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The proverbial writing, on the proverbial wall.
But all the writing is proverbial. William D. Cohan thinks Elizabeth Warren should quit. He is not Elizabeth Warren, nor does he appear to know any facts about Warren’s situation beyond what anyone who would read a column about Warren would have already read in the news. So why not embrace the familiar? Aside from the occasional awkward Briticism—“bloody disagreeable,” “a petty row”—the piece is a Levittown of opinion writing, stock constructions all the way to the horizon, till the effect becomes fantastical:
The inconvenient truth….for the good of the country…stop the charade now…get underway full- throttle….a well-deserved pat on the back….caught Obama’s eye…in the aftermath of the financial meltdown….In retrospect, that may have been Warren’s high-water mark….That’s when the gloves came off….audible gasps….debate raged….did not concede any ground…what a partisan lightning rod Warren has become….faring little better….all but inevitable….Enough shenanigans already….argued forcefully…a fight worth having…serving the president best…Commonwealth of Massachusetts, head held high.
