I recently came across this piece in The New Yorker and many a misguided advertising campaign came to mind.....
"So what you have is not 'stay the course', but, in fact, a study in constant motion."
—Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, October 23rd.
A strategy room, the White House. Two senior-level Presidential strategists sit with two Madison Avenue creatives.
STRATEGIST 1: Thank you for coming.
MAD MAN 1: Excited to be here.
MAD MAN 2: There are guys on the roof with guns.
STRATEGIST 2: We know.
STRATEGIST 1: We’re here to talk messaging.
MAD MAN 1: “Stay the course.”
STRATEGIST 1: Please don’t use those words again in this building.
STRATEGIST 2: Tang? We have Tang and Chips Ahoys over on the credenza if anyone wants. Please help yourself.
STRATEGIST 1: What’s our message? That’s a rhetorical question to myself. The message is, in broad strokes, “We know the course, we’ve seen the course, we’ve been on the course many, many times, but the course has changed a little, in part because it’s a very big course and it’s almost impossible to keep an eye on the whole course and this kind of funny thing happened while we looked away for a minute or were out of town, say, or went on vacation for a while, and what happened was someone—unbeknownst to us and, frankly, without the proper permit—built, like, a detour in the course that took people off course and led them, quite by accident, to, like, a huge bomb factory, but we’re working to shut that bomb factory down and reroute the course back to the original course, which, you have to trust us, goes by some wonderful scenery.” We need that in four words.
STRATEGIST 2: Without the literal mention of the words “bomb,” “factory,” or “stay.”
STRATEGIST 1: You’ve got one hour. Mr. Snow has a press conference to announce the new course. The ideal line says as little as possible.
MAD MAN 1: Understood.
MAD MAN 2: What about something like “Stay near the course”?
MAD MAN 1: Interesting. The current course is perceived as negative but still necessary . . .
STRATEGIST 1: . . . and “near” gives you options away from the course.
STRATEGIST 2: I had a thought. What about—and I know it’s longish—“Hey, you guys, look at the cool course over there. How ’bout we go there instead of this course with the dead bodies on it?”?
MAD MAN 1: I like that it’s colloquial.
MAD MAN 2: Human. Friendly. Or how about “Why stay when you can go?”?
STRATEGIST 1: Sounds like an exit-strategy line.
MAD MAN 2: He’s right.
MAD MAN 1: You’re right. What if it were “What remains is what was started. Only different”?
STRATEGIST 1: That’s interesting.
STRATEGIST 2: That’s very interesting.
STRATEGIST 1: It’s vague without being completely obtuse.
MAD MAN 1: BP uses the line “Beyond petroleum.” Why not something like “Beyond staying”?
MAD MAN 2: “Beyond the course.”
MAD MAN 1: “Beyond staying the course.”
STRATEGIST 1: I love that. [To Strategist 2] Did you hear that?
STRATEGIST 2: This Tang is warm.
MAD MAN 1: “Beyond staying the course.”
STRATEGIST 2: That’s very good.
STRATEGIST 1: Good. This is good. But what else? What other directions?
MAD MAN 2: I find the war so serious. It’s such a downer.
MAD MAN 1: Huge downer.
STRATEGIST 1: It tests very poorly.
MAD MAN 2: What about something lighter. “What happens in Baghdad stays in Baghdad.”
STRATEGIST 2: I like that a lot.
STRATEGIST 1: That’s very interesting.
MAD MAN 1: What about something just incredibly, like, almost poetic . . . like a . . . a . . .
MAD MAN 2: . . . a haiku . . .
MAD MAN 1: . . . a haiku. Exactly. I’m thinking, like, “Of course.”
MAD MAN 2: I love that.
STRATEGIST 1: It’s different.
STRATEGIST 2: It’s short. POTUS likes short.
MAD MAN 1: It’s pithy.
MAD MAN 2: Don’t use “pithy.” POTUS thinks pithy means “dirty.”
STRATEGIST 1: “Of course.” Interesting.
MAD MAN 1: Or “Of course. Where you stay.”
MAD MAN 2: “Of course. Stay a while.”
MAD MAN 1: “Of course we’ll stay!”
STRATEGIST 1: That’s great!
MAD MAN 1: Could we get ice? What is Tang, anyway? 
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