The coffee urn theory of discourse.

You know the kind of coffee urn I'm talking about, right? Those big restaurant ones with the little clear glass tube on the outside that shows how full they are. That works because the tube and the main part of the urn are connected at the bottom in a kind of U, and because of that coffee stands to the same height both in the urn and in the tube. The urn could be big enough to hold an ocean of coffee and the coffee would still stand to the same height in the little tube. Liquid pressure equalizes the depth of the coffee in both.

To paraphrase (but not very much) the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, controversy equalizes the foolish and the wise in the same way. And the fools know it.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when you watch the talking heads tomorrow morning blabber about the difference between “breach” and “overtop.” Or, for that matter, the difference between Dubya and Dubai.