Continuing our discussion earlier of terms that should be banned after the election, if only because we will not be able to get rid of them right now, Dan Balz proclaims Obama had his Sister Souljah moment with Jesse Jackson:
Barack Obama leads a charmed life. He finally had his Sister Souljah moment and didn’t even have to show up. Jesse Jackson did it for him solo.
***Jackson’s multiple apologies attest to the harm the civil rights leader knows he did to himself. His crude comment, captured on an open microphone on Fox News, was so out of bounds that even Jackson’s son, a national co-chair of Obama’s campaign, leaped to condemn “the ugly rhetoric” and urged his father to keep his mouth shut. Jackson has certainly diminished himself and, given the fact that he attacked the first African American to lead a major party into a general election, likely hurt himself in particular within the black community.
Now granted, I didn’t know what he meant when he said it, but I can not be the only one who thinks what Jackson said wasn’t really that crude, or that out of bounds, or that it was “ugly rhetoric.” It strikes me as the kind of thing people say all the time to each other in private- “I would like to rip his nuts off.” “God, I would just beat him about the head and neck if I could.” “I will rip his arms off and beat him with the bloody stumps.” It was just colorful language, but it wasn’t necessarily that crude or “ugly” or even that out of bounds. Hell, it was what passed as every day conversation among guys when I was in the Army. Maybe it was a little salty for national exposure, but it wasn’t that outrageous to me, and besides, it wasn’t intended for national consumption anyway.
Then again, I may be a really bad judge of what is crude and out of bounds. For me, you at least need an “f bomb” to verge on over the top.
At any rate, the list of bannable terms from early is growing. The following should be banned post election 2008, if at all possible. Anyone who uses them should have their nuts cut out:
1.) flip-flop
2.) throw under the bus
3.) Sister Souljah moment
4.) slap in the face
5.) but how will it play in Scranton? (or whatever city that is supposed to signify middle America).
6.) Middle America
7.) “Elitist,” when what you actually mean is able to read at a fourth grade level or higher
8.) homeland
9.) “He’s comfortable in his own skin”
10. “Would like to have a beer with him.”
11.) practicing partisan politics or practicing politics as usual
12.) Maverick
13.) Ethnic cleansing
14.) “rock star” to refer to anyone not engaged in the actual playing of actual music.
15.) “give them the tools they need.”
16.) “played the x card” (where x = race, gender, whatever)
17.) white working class and “Reagan Democrats,” who now consist of Geraldine Ferraro and the 6 folks running the 400 sockpuppets at NoQuarter
18.) Adding the ‘-gate’ suffix to any scandal (or, as it is most of the time, non-scandals)
19.) “commander in chief” threshold
20.) stab in the back
21.) family values
22.) pain at the pump
23.) change agent
24.) “my friends”
I challenge anyone out there to find ten minutes of any of the various shows with the idiot talking heads without multiple infractions from the list above. You won’t be able to do it.
Billy K
The only thing this “episode” demonstrates is that Jesse Jackson is very threatened by Barack Obama’s candidacy. Once can make of that what one will. I won’t draw any further conclusions.
As far as bannable terms; yes the talking head rely far too heavily not just on the terms themselves, but the subtext they provide. I’m pretty sure it was already clear (at least the readers here) they serve no real purpose. They just mindlessly repeat phrases and attach names to them. There is no insight, no commentary, and God knows, no news.
demkat620
Can we also add the Bushie favorite, “We’re makin’ good progress.”?
That phrase is the equivalent of the check is in the mail.
nightjar
Although on temporary hiatus but poised to make a general election comeback.
“Hasn’t Closed the Deal Yet”
Delia
I want “perfect storm” banned. There’s been a perfect storm of perfect storms and I’m perfectly sick of them.
SamFromUtah
“Stab in the back” should at least be required to be in the original German.
Mary
nightjar, Tweety hit that one just a few minutes ago on Hardball. Sorry!
KevinD
I vote for anything including “On/Off The Table”
Dulcie
How about “reject” and “denounce”?
JC
Actually, in a “fair” political universe, McCain would have a “perfect storm” of the moment. Bewtween:
1. Social Security is a disgrace.
2. Americans are a bunch of whiners – things are great!
3. “I don’t know what I voted” on birth control.
All within 24 hours!!
And yet, do we get even a tenth of the sh*tstorm that Obama got for the “bitter” comments?
You liberal media – at work again.
nightjar
That Tweety, always the deep thinker.
Just Some Fuckhead
No way, fuck is an awesome word. For me over the top is..
Drawing a blank. I’ll get back to ya if I think of something.
Anna Granfors
You forgot one of my all-time loatheables, “playing politics”. (Usually pronounced “playin’ politics”, in its usual usage by some southern GOP moron.)
JC
Fuck is the most versatile word in the English language.
It is, indeed, an awesome word.
BombIranForChrist
I am with Delia. I hate the phrase “perfect storm”. When every storm is a perfect storm, does perfection lose its meaning?
Yes. Yes it does. And the next person to use “perfect storm” will be beaten about the face and neck with the bloody stumps of Jesse Jackson’s n … oh nevermind.
Carlo
i get the total un-awesomeness of most of the terms, but what’s so objectionable about “homeland” or “ethnic cleansing”?
Sirkowski
I don’t think the problem with what Jackson said is that it was crude. The problem is Jackson was dissing Obama for not being Jackson and using race to do so. If Jackson had said “holy shit I love that motherfucker”, we wouldn’t even know about it.
I remember when Jackson came to Canada during the Oka Crisis. Jackson was scolding the Canadian government for killing a Native. The journalists had to tell him it was actually a cop that got killed by the Natives. We didn’t see him after that.
Ted
Can we ban “good closer”?
gil mann
Howzabout “the far left” to describe people who think the Constitution’s a pretty cool document and who aren’t crazy about waging wars of aggression against the wrong country?
Not to take food out of Peter Beinart’s (et fucking al.) mouth or anything, I’m just a stickler for definitions.
Ted
You wouldn’t want the food out of Peter Beinart’s mouth. Think ‘2 girls, 1 cup’ but with Joe Lieberman as the other person.
Chuck Butcher
If the phrase has been used four different times in the media it should be dead and buried. But nooooooo…
Laura W
On Countdown with Rachel a bit ago, J. Alter said McCain “threw Gramm under the bus” today. Although he said it with acknowledgment that it is a current cliche, I’m taking half a point anyway.
skippy
i’m old school, how about we ban “bottom line”? because no matter what the “bottom line” is, there’s always another piece of paper with another bottom line somewhere.
speaking of being old school, how about we ban “old school”? because that’s a phrase that’s younger than me. i never heard of anyone or thing being “old school” when i was in school. so what’s up with that, as jerry seinfeld would say.
as for the sister soldiah moment, there’s no way in hell this is bad for obama, except in the eyes of extreme bigots (“them nigras always use profanity, i ain’t votin for hussein osama!”).
besides, i watched some anchor-jerk on msnbc today try to get the “democratic” and “republican” “strategists” up in arms about jackson’s remarks, and both men kept bringing the conversation back to gramm.
frogspawn
“Embolden”, as in “If we do this (engage in some activity that sane people would consider reasonable, pragmatic or [God forbid] even to be in our own national interest, as opposed to the military-industrial-congressional complex’s) it will embolden the turrists/the perfidious Iranians/Emmanuel Goldstein”.
Kill it. Kill it dead.
Eric
Can we throw “deal-breaker” on the list too? I swear I had only heard that term once or twice in my entire life before FISA, and now it’s tattooed onto my retinas.
mikefromtexas
I vote for banning the term ‘Democracy’, since the FISA vote it really doesn’t exist anymore.
MissLaura
Ah, damn. I put a late comment in the other thread thanks to my insistence on reading in chronological order. Anyway, my contributions are “third rail of American politics” (used to describe about 20 different issues, yet they’re all the third rail) and “______ has died” or “the death of ______” — this one is usually innocence or democracy or the Constitution, and that’s less a cable news commentator thing than a blog commenter thing.
Delia
Think of it this way. Did you ever hear the term, Homeland,” to describe the US until after 9/11 or more precisely, the establishment of DHS? It’s a fascist term, and the entire mainstream has just swallowed it whole.
Just Some Fuckhead
“One-off” seems to be making it into all my recent meetings. I’m not sure everyone is using it correctly so maybe instead of banning it, we just provide usage guidance.
Adolphus
I missed the other thread completely, but I can’t believe no one mentioned “in the tank.”
I know what is meant, sort of a version of “drinking the kool aid,” but I have no idea where the image comes from.
Is it like a dunking booth tank? A gas tank? Maybe a military tank and it is an allusion to Patton?
I got no idea and I am tired of it. Apparently everyone who disagrees with someone is in the tank for the other guy and therefore their opinions need not be engaged.
End the use of this term or explain it!
Delia
Rudy Giuliani’s increasing irrelevance notwithstanding, this one still needs to be nailed:
“9/11 changed everything.”
Enceladus
And let’s not forget:
“surge,” “surging,” etc.
Jon H
“Maybe it was a little salty for national exposure, but it wasn’t that outrageous to me, and besides, it wasn’t intended for national consumption anyway.”
Well, come on. You’re Jesse Jackson. You’re on a FOX show. They hate you there. How could he believe that anything said in front of camera and microphone would be ‘off the record’?
Eli Rabett
This suggests an all time drinking game, watching CNN or MSNBC or FOX and having one every time one of these is uttered.
gil mann
I can’t, Ted. I’ve made a point of not finding out what that is. And I spend a good chunk of my day on the web, so no mean feat, that.
Jon H
Here’s a term for the, to coin a phrase, ban hammer: “hard work”
Yeah, being president is hard work. It’s supposed to be. You don’t get to whinge about it you empty suit upward-failing bastard.
Another term for the ban hammer: “ban hammer”
Pillsy
I actually sort of appreciate Dan Balz’ comment, because it demonstrates so perfectly that the phrase “Sister Souljah moment” no longer actually means anything.
Joshua Norton
I’ve been saving this up for years:
Analysis of a Debate:
He held his own.
He hit a home run.
Talking Points:
If we do that, then the terrorists win.
The world changed forever on September 11th.
Soccer Moms
That’s the liberal media bias.
He’s willing to stand up to the Washington bureaucrats.
He won’t back down to the special interest groups.
We’ll reach across party lines.
Our children’s future is at stake.
It’s still early.
There’s still a long way to go in this race.
I’ve never believed in polls.
What matters is how people vote on Election Day.
Polls don’t mean a thing.
It’s time to move on.
It’s time to move forward.
We must put this unfortunate chapter behind us.
We must let the healing process begin.
There’s more – this is just off the top of my head.
Ted
Ahh, but you’ve at least enjoyed some of the YouTube reaction videos, right?
Rome Again
Good point. As soon as he started complaining, I think people should have realized he wasn’t really suited for the job and demoted him to something a whole lot simpler, say White House janitor – that’s a job that doesn’t require the kind of mental genius he lacks.
Just Some Fuckhead
News anchor, after covering a petty distraction nonstop for the third straight day, asking some anonymous guest pundit, “Does this story have legs?”
I’ve actually shattered a television over that one. Oopsie.
srv
For the children
gil mann
No, but I know OF them (think I might’ve read about ’em on Slate, which, apart from 2 or 3 contributors, is another thing I wish I’d remained ignorant of), which is why I built that mental dam to begin with. Maybe I’m way off in my assumptions about 2G1C, but I care too much about pornography to have it sullied by something so twisted and sick.
Phoenix Woman
Here’s the deal, John: As was said over at another website earlier today (I’m currently brain-farting on which one), the deal with Jesse is that the cons hate him so much that they will cheerfully attack the snot out of him even if it means hurting McCain or helping Obama, which comes to the same thing.
stickler
Here’s one to ban forever…
“Sending a message,” or other permutations thereof, like “this sends the message…”, or “we must send him a message…”
Especially if used in the context of international diplomacy, where it usually translates to ordinary English as: “The United States/an American politician/Paul Wolfowitz today made a belligerent threat of violence against (insert leader of Rogue State here)…”
This “sends the message” that the US has a flatulent, irresponsible political culture where preening and threatening violence against other nations is perfectly acceptable to the electorate.
Note also that “sending a message” is almost ALWAYS personalized. We need to “send a message” to Saddam, or to Achmedinidschad, or Kim Jong Il, or whomever. The Enemy is always one big boogeyman.
Cap and Gown
Disagree with “ethnic cleansing” and “stab in the back.”
Add: “in the tank.”
Jim Henley
John, I just wanted to talk down to you long enough to point out that you listed “Elitist” twice.
Cain
“islamofascism”
And Jon said what I wanted to say “Hard work”. He’s workin hard, he’s rollin up his sleeves. It’s hard work.. I get so mad after hearing ‘hard work’.
cain
John Cole
It was elitist of you to notice that.
Fixed, though.
jake
Can we shoot anyone who uses the passive voice with malice aforethought? Can we, huh? Pleeeeeaze? [Bambi eyes.]
Tim (The Other One)
I love that Gramm stepped on his dick. I really love it.
He ‘s been a prick from day one.
I would like the invocation “The American People” to be banned
I think Rev. Al and Jessie are just bugged that they’re becoming irrelevant.
“Motherfucker” is way under-utilized, probably due to it’s social inequities.
Tim (The Other One)
Oh and I totally concur w/ “let the healing begin”. I take special pleasure in using that phrase at the most inappropriate times.
JL
Please no more MY FRIEND………
Splitting Image
“Drinking the kool aid” isn’t on the list either.
We could build an episode of “Yes Minister” out of all these:
Hacker: Humphrey, did you read this? The junior minister of finance gave an interview to the Daily Mail and called me an “out of touch elitist”.
Humphrey: I glanced at it Minister. I’d say its to be expected now that he’s moved over to finance. He must portray himself as the friend of the working class, and of course the simplest way to do that is to label the most aristocratic member of Parliament an “elitist”. Politics as usual, I’m sure you’d agree.
Hacker: Damned Judas! After all I’ve done for him. You know what his problem is, don’t you? He has a Messiah complex. Betraying me like that.
Humphrey: With all due respect Minister, if betraying you makes him a Judas, I’d have to say it was you who had the Messiah complex.
Hacker (wistfully): What was it Churchill said, Humphrey? “If you want a friend in politics, get a dog”. It’s just as true today, you know.
Humphrey: Actually, Minister, it was Harry Truman. “You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog”.
Hacker: What’s the difference? Turn your back on someone for a minute and the next thing you know, they’ve thrown you under the bus and stabbed you in the back.
Bernard: I beg your pardon, Minister. They can’t stab you in the back if they’ve thrown you under the bus. Unless they’ve got very long arms.
Hacker: Bernard!
Bernard: I’m sorry Minister.
Ted
Can we ban ‘Yes, we can!’ after it has outlived its usefulness (ie. after Obama is elected)?
Just Some Fuckhead
Yes, we can.
srv
I think we’ve turned the corner on this meme.
Joshua Norton
Saying someone did a 360 when they actually mean 180. Even the most inept geometry student can tell you that.
Brachiator
Agree that any and all references to Sister Souljah moments should be banned. Reporters who are too lazy — or too stupid — do to any real reporting or analysis love to fall back on false, incomplete, or irrelevant comparisons, a simple minded election template in which current events are supposedly just like stuff that happened before.
John, you just have a blind spot here. Jackson’s remarks are offensive, even a betrayal, because they come from someone who is supposedly an Obama (and Democratic Party nominee) supporter. Jackson wasn’t someone in the Army. He was a fool in front of a live microphone.
The context of the remarks, Jackson complaining that Obama was talking down to black people and should be punished, is a reminder of a battle that Jackson and other so-called black leaders have lost. Jackson, as a former presidential candidate and one of the few national level black leaders, viewed himself as the unofficial president of black people. His refusal to accept his being pushed to the margins resulted in a pointless, ugly, and pathetic outburst (Bill Clinton, for different reasons, also suffers from this syndrome).
Jackson also cannot deal with the fact that Obama has dramatically altered much of the nature of the debate about race in America, which previously was the responsibility of Jackson, Sharpton, the Congressional Black Caucus, and a few others.
Also, Jackson pointlessly energized his enemies, who resurrected his earlier “Hymietown” comments — even though they were made over twenty years ago.
If Jackson’s remarks were not such a big deal, his own son would not have vehemently rejected them.
Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, and Bill Clinton have all had their Amy Winehouse moments, pointless meltdowns in which they reveal their inability to deal with Obama, either because he is too black or not black enough for their tastes.
Fortunately, Obama has so far handled this nonsense with dignity and grace.
Ed Drone
Actually, it becomes accurate when you note that it means pretending to make a change in course but ending up going the way you were before. It often works best when the target is the MSM. In fact, it has a 100% success rate (for Republicans).
Ed
AkaDad
Every time I heard Tony Snow say, we shouldn’t “play the blame game”, I wanted to shoeprint his junk.
The Grand Panjandrum
Si se puede.
Words and guns don’t hurt or kill people. People hurt and kill people. So I say we shoot anyone caught using a cliche more than once an hour. (This would evidently create quite a few job openings on the cable news networks.) Jesus! I’m a fucking genius. I figured out a way to exercise my 2nd Amendment Rights, clean up the English language AND create jobs. That is enough awesome to get me through the night.
Kyle
Jackson wasn’t someone in the Army. He was a fool in front of a live microphone.
This is FOX NEWS, for pete’s sake.
Jackson should have known that anything he said inside the building, whether ostensibly on-camera or not, would be exploited for the greater glory of ratings and The Party. Why Dems appear on that propaganda sewage outlet is beyond me.
CT
“3am phone call”
“Straight talk”
“He/she’s a fighter”
“Outlier”
“Move/pivot to the center”
Jay
I don’t know about you all, but Jackson’s “nuts” remark did not hit me well at all. I’ve written this elsewhere, but castration often followed the lynching of black men.
Just…creepy imagery in my head, and representative, I think, of a staggering failure of historical memory by Rev. Jackson.
How do y’all see it?
Delia
“Closure.”
slag
Agreed with CT on all those.
Also, would suggest:
“race-baiting/muslim-baiting” as a variant on “racist”
“Regular people” as an appalling variant on “white working class”
jake
Yep, and there’s no way in hell Jackson doesn’t know castration and lynching (or castration and beating/shooting/ burning …) went together like a cross and kerosene in the good old days.
I also think his “apology” was a solid 9.4 on the Lame Apology Scale.
Oh well. I’m sure 1/2 the fRightWing will demand that Obama reject and denounce Jackson for threating his junk while the other 1/2 will show this is proof that African-Americans are violent and shouldn’t be allowed in the White House, we can get back to mocking them and Jackson can continue his slide into obscurity.
jack fate
“Change agent.” Can we kill this phrase, please?
Punchy
Fixed.
SamFromUtah
Si se puede.
Cool – I think without the accent it means “if you can”.
Pasota
Is “transcends race” taken yet?
Frank Jacobs
If we’re just listing pet peeve phrases at this point, I humbly offer up “on the ground.” God, that one annoys me. Every goddam anchor and TV news reporter uses this one and it means absolutely nothing. I’ve even caught some of the more erudite NPR hosts using it. Hurr… raisin’ my blood pressure just thinking about it >:)
Enlightened Layperson
I’m with Delia. Closure should have been buried at the crossroads with a stake through its heart a long time ago.
Big E
BI-PARTISAN…. and Reaching across the aisle make me gag…..
would like to hear some new ones like :
• a death match is inevitable…
• his foot went way up his ass to the knee…
• the bill failed so completely that he/she came to his fellow congressional members with dirty knees and open mouth..
Brachiator
The problem was the words, not the venue.
By the way, describing a group of people as automatically belonging to a “community” is another phrase that should be retired, put out to pasture, buried six feet under, and never used again.
When I read crap about how the “scientific community” disagreed with somebody about something, as though scientists are a monolithic single-thought bunch of monks and nuns, it makes my teeth hurt. Similarly, writing about the “black community” or the “gay community,” always implies that a person could not be both black and gay, and also implies that blacks, gays, and any other similarly grouped persons can be placed in a kind of social ghetto, categorized, and then dismissed.
Brett
“Pain At The Pump” should be banned from both the media and political campaigns. Fucking alliterations . . .
I agree with whoever said “Perfect Storm” should be banned. I’m more in favor of a partial ban – you are not allowed to use unless it is truly a clusterfuck of multiple proportions from all directions.
Conservatively Liberal
This is a new line, but it will get old real fast. Said with a ‘fist pump’ into the air for good effect.
Bush leaving the last G8 meeting, saying goodbye to the leaders of the other nations present:
This is some sick game to him, and everyone who voted for him fell for it. What a sick fuck.
Koz
Yeah, yeah, personally I just try to play one game at a time.
The reason we have cliches is because most of them are have substantial basis in reality. If we can’t talk about being “thrown under the bus”, how should we interpret Obama’s race speech wrt to his white grandmother? The fault with most of Obama’s support is that most of them have drank the Kool-Aid (oops, that oughta go on the list somewhere) and want to find reasons to pretend that any train of thought to the contrary doesn’t count.
Conservatively Liberal
No agreement about Obama’s grandmother or the kool aid drinkers. My opinion is that any supporter has their die-hards (some Hillary supporters, for example), and people who support one candidate over another tend to accuse the other side of whatever they feel fits.
I call it projection. Meanwhile, there is a large contingent of supporters who are realists and know that Obama is just a politician, and we know that it is futile to put him on a pedestal. He is not perfect, but he sure beats the crap out of the other guy in just about every way imaginable. If you think otherwise, then IMO you are a fool.
Anyone who expects a politician to deliver on every single issue is asking for endless disappointment, and anyone who says that every supporter of a candidate ‘drinks the kool aid’ is only wishing out loud or pissed because their candidate did not win.
The reason we have cliches is because people are intellectually lazy. Regarding the ‘one game at a time’ limit you impose on yourself, I can see your one game.
Lame.
Phoebe
1. Spitting Image, that was spot on and fantastic.
2. I’m with John in that I wasn’t shocked by what Jackson said, but I’m also with Brachiator in that the context – why he said it – is really really wrong. I mind what he meant by it much much more than how he put it, and I do not believe he thought it would be public. Maybe that’s naive of him, but no way would he have wanted that out.
Koz
Let’s try to follow the argument before we make a diagnosis, Mr. Amateur Shrink. The reality is, it is no small amount demeaning for Obama that he tries to equate Rev Wrights multidecade long public display of bitterness with the racial trepidations supposedly felt his white grandma. Phrase it how you like.
My point was that the Obama campaign and especially some of his less thoughtful supporters want to pretend that the whole business (or any other criticism of Obama for that matter) is simply beneath notice. Like, well, this…..
cleter
Going forward, I would like to pundits and punditoids abandon the phrase “going forward” as we move forward.
Now, I think Jesse Jackson just introduced a whole new phrase that perhaps the media can embrace. Like:
“Well, Bob, Phil Gramm certainly cut the n**s off of John McCain.”
“Well, Steve, the problem going forward is that George Bush’s continuing unpopularity is threatening to cut the n**s off of John McCain.”
Conservatively Liberal
You sure interpret everything to support every thesis of yours, dontcha? In no way was I saying what you tried to prove I was, but when you have nothing to stand on I guess people like you will use anything to prove your point. Even if it has nothing to do with your point.
You are a cute lil’ ratfucker!
Laura W
I concur with “regular people”! Toward the end of the primaries that started to spew forth in almost every speech I heard, even from Obama, as I recall.
I always wondered where the distinction was; in contrast to what? What was the opposite of regular people?
Irregular people?
Special people?
Abnormal people?
Anointed people?
Politicians?
I need someone to ‘splain that gem to me.
South of I-10
I realize I am really late to the thread, but I would like to ban all mention of the suffix “gate” when not used in conjunction with “Water”. Does every scandal have to be something “gate”?
South of I-10
Okay, never mind, I see it is in the original list now. Off to get more coffee. . .
Laura W
Cling.
Have we mentioned “cling” yet?
And “distraction”.
I know this is not a thread for what-do-you-call-those-forward/backward-words?, but I was very proud when this came to me:
Distraction?
No it carts id
Kevin
I mentioned this elsewhere…
“x Was For y Before He Was Against It”, and its opposite.
Big E
one more thang….
an immediate public flogging for
anyone……… who says anywhere that:
$200,000.00 plus .. is a ‘middle class’ salary……
JenJen
“Resonate” still bugs me. Media likes to throw it around because it makes them sound fancy and condescending at the same time.
“Will this resonate with the voters of Youngstown?”
Nazgul35
Don’t forget Artrios’ favorite…
“No one could have predicted…”
Dismayed Liberal
This one hasn’t been in the news for awhile, because Iraq has largely disappeared from the nightly news, and thus the political conversation, but who can forget:
“Turn[ed] the corner.”
Ella in NM
Based on your list, it appears Chris Matthews will be the first person to be “de-nuttered” committing the crime of using ALL of these phrases in each and every broadcast he has performed since January, 2008.