“A Whitman’s Sampler Holiday Assortment of Federal Charges”—Use of Visual, Evocative Expression to Emphasize One’s Point

Here is a recent example of a highly effective communicator using a vivid, evocative expression while emphasizing something and thus making his assertion indelible—an example which, I hope, will inspire the rest of us into similarly imaginative analogies, especially when we are trying to break through the clutter. 

• Appearing on PBS “NewsHour” just a few hours after President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had pled guilty to numerous charges, Michael Mukasey, the U.S. Attorney General under President Bush 43, was asked by host Judy Woodruff to elaborate a bit on Cohen’s legal jeopardy. Mukasey’s response: “Well, he’s facing a Whitman’s Sampler holiday assortment of federal charges, including tax fraud, income tax evasion, and the like.”

© Copyright 2018  V.J. Singal