Mark Weiss writes:
>The usage is so common that it generated the name of a popular TV
> show, "Spin City," about a political operative whose job is to "spin."
Mark -- are you sure of your dates on this? My memory is that Spin City
draws (as a joke) on the Clinton Spinners. And the usage is crossing the
(established) "spin" with the (Clinton-era) 'spin [doctor]s'.
> The
> show considerably predates Blair.
Yeah -- as as term, 'spin' is [no argument?] old. "Spin +doctor+" is
something else.
> Spindoctor is more recent--the political
> operative in that TV show would now be called a spindoctor. The usage goes
> back about 8 years, mas o menos.
See above (and elsewhere).
Spinners, we have always had with us. As, e.g., P(S)aul, the hatchetman of
the sanhedrin.
Robin
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