The missing -ic strikes again. From Dan Froomkin's blog:
After self-deprecatingly apologizing to Democrats for failing to refer to their party by its actual name, Bush did it again yesterday -- three times. Even as he was talking about working with them!
On balancing the budget: "And I'd like to work with the Democrat leadership, as well as, obviously, my Republican folks, to get it done."
On health care: "I got a letter the other day from a group of Republican and Democrat senators."
On his education legislation: "[I] will reach out to Democrat members, as well as Republican members, to get this bill reauthorized."
You may have heard Anthony Weiner's response to this, a long speech in which he dropped the -an from the Republican party about a dozen times. (If you missed that, I'm appending the YouTube video of it below.) Childish games, perhaps. But the right to name things has always gone to the powerful.