As buzzwords go, the term “to primary” – as in to challenge an office-holder in the primaries from an extreme side of the ideological spectrum – has quickly run up the charts. While it’s catchy, and not noxious, it just sounds sort of silly and adds little. And OK, it can’t be easy as a political pundit live on camera to keep the cool-sounding phrase in your head out of your next sentence.

Still, here’s hoping it’s as short-lived as “fiscal cliff” should have been (why didn’t that die with the tax deal on Jan. 3?), and not as lasting as the unfairly still-with-us “kick the can down the road,” which get cringes in our household not only because it’s stale, but because it remains the emptiest of euphemisms. Let’s instead call that one “Washington being nakedly irresponsible.”