How so with the "pretzel logic"? It really disgusts me that my second-grader comes home from school talking about her "frienemies" - friends who she has to pretend to dislike for social purposes (which resulted in a VERY stern lecture from me on the basic wrongness of behaving in such a way and threats of punishment if I were to find her still doing it) ... why is it so difficult to believe that adult politicians are perfectly capable of doing the exact same thing?
Regarding Jesse's clerical title, that was my mistake; I should have written "Reverend" as "Rev-er-end" (or maybe "Rehv'r'nd"?) to mimick the way Rush Limbaugh says it.
So that was my point: many people now routinely indulge themselves in pretzel logic, sometimes even congratulating themselves on their ‘subtility’ and ‘sophistication’.
There’s a great episode of ‘Dead Like Me’ (’The Shallow End’) that analyzes the ‘frenemy’ concept, though the word never occurs in the episode. The problem with sharing it with your child is that the language is pretty harsh (nowhere near ‘Deadwood’). If there were a bleeped version, the meaning and context would be very good for your child to learn what will ultimately happen to those who learn to go with the pack like that, even against their own best intentions.