Recently I came across the MSNBC.com headline “ ‘Double Dippers’ could enable what they fear.” Aha, I thought, this truculent news website is finally tackling the important story of malfeasant government employees who go on retirement pay (sometimes with added disability benefits), then take a different government job and collect both pension and salary.
But MSNBC.com operates under a different definition of “double dipper” than I do. The story — actually an Associated Press wire piece — focused on “politicians, economists and analysts who foresee back-to-back recessions.” It blamed them for causing the country’s and the world’s economic woes by scaring “people into holding tightly onto their wallets.”
Irreconcilable difference.
