Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently got a lot of mileage off comments that accused President Obama of sitting on his hands about the situation in Afghanistan. So much so, in fact, that Cheney’s characterization of Obama’s deliberation – “dithering” – became a mantra of the conservative Right.

This, on the afternoon before Obama does announce his Afghanistan strategy, isn’t the most important story. But thinking about why these verbal shenanigans do or don’t work in politics is a worthwhile exercise.

Given his track record of voicing his support for more war, more occupation, and more military deployment whenever the opportunity to do so presents itself, what Cheney said isn’t surprising. What is interesting is how he said it: Obama is “dithering.”

Cheney wants more troops deployed into Afghanistan in order to showcase the United States’ massive military might and hard power to the rest of the world. And he wants the decision made and announced before Obama’s thought it through carefully. Given that most Americans think shortsighted decision-making is partially, if not primarily, to blame for the dilemma in Iraq, ‘fessing up to his true position wouldn’t be politically beneficial.

Thus, the “dithering” characterization. The intellectual equivalent of chewing gum, it’s a cheap, lazy way to say “I want the president to make a decision right now, before he’s thought it through completely.” It’s also a single word easy for news media, be they print or broadcast, to reproduce quickly with the illusion of complete context. For sure, some political strategist scored lots of accolades for developing a talking point that has penetrated the voting public so successfully.

After Obama does announce his Afghanistan strategy, look for his volumes of critics, Cheney included, to come up with another succinct way of saying they think something that might be good is actually something that is certainly bad.

That’s the tone of most political discourse nowadays, with lengthy positions that don’t fit into a headline or a 140-character Twitter post giving way to the consumption habits of a public that demands headlines but ignores context. Problem is, policy, be it domestic or global, is neither explained nor refuted with the brevity voters have come to value—but that same brevity comes in handy when spinning facts or disguising truths becomes politically convenient.

Liberal democrats today do this far more effectively than their detractors.

In order to advocate for wide-ranging regulatory changes in many industries, Obama supporters have co-opted the term “progressive” to describe their collective ideology. This became necessary after conservatives effectively demonized the word “liberal” into something dirty and distasteful. Never mind that a “progressive” is merely “one who embraces change,” and that republican values such as industry deregulation qualify as progressive politics, so long as they create change in policy away from how it was before. For some, “progressive republican” isn’t a misnomer, though it might sound like one.

Most liberals aren’t able to articulate the change they so ardently campaigned to believe in, so their shallow buzzword becomes their entire platform.

Both parties, and the personalities that comprise them, need to be more effective at pushing out honest ideas, not words that aim to mask them, because doing so is quicker, easier, and more beneficial than the alternatives.

An idea that requires a buzzword, on the other hand, isn’t worth having.