'Transnational pabulum'

Talking about the Bolton nomination as U.N. ambassador, the ever-quotable Mark Steyn says, "For much of the civilised world the transnational pabulum has become an end in itself, and one largely unmoored from anything so tiresome as reality."

I recommend the whole article, but in that sentence he has captured a nauseating tendency in discourse at large: in ecumenical-speak in religious circles, in politically correct speech in political circles.

Here's an example from very recently: Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard after a 200-pound accused rapist overpowered and murdered a lone female deputy assigned to bring him into the courthouse: "I think that women are capable of doing anything that men are capable of doing. And I don’t think it’s the weight, I think it’s the heart, the training, and the ability. I don’t think the weight has a whole lot to do with it." (I wonder if he's going to get up at her funeral and tell the assembly that she just didn't have the heart, the training or the ability to do her job.)