Okay, so this might not be the strongest argument ever voiced – but I can’t help but notice the frequent and somewhat indiscriminate use of the word ‘egregious’ by Mayor Fenty in recent months.
My interest was peaked when the DC government employees/porn story aired – and Fenty deemed their behavior “not just egregious…” I was sure I had heard a similar quote – and low and behold, just 2 weeks earlier, Fenty called the responsiveness (or negligence) of DC’s social service agencies in the Banita Jacks case “egregious.” A brief session of googling this morning brought up two additional citations: once in September, while vowing to continue the fight for DC voting rights Fenty pointed out the Senate’s failure to right the “egregious wrong” that Washingtonians have been forced to deal with. Then, digging back to his days as a City Councilman in 2006, Mayor Fenty stated, “An egregious, continuous pattern of abuse and neglect is being perpetrated by MRDDA (Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration) and its contractors upon the District citizens it serves.”
Call me catty, but does his communications staff not have access to a thesaurus? No cause for alarm, but I’m starting to see a pattern…
