Political kabuki

Languagehat mentions a post at a blog called Far Outliers on the subject of "political kabuki". He mentions not having heard the phrase before; while SC has heard "kabuki" used in exactly the way that the original poster writes -- "a way to denote an empty political performance" -- he wasn't sure that the collocation was all that common. So in order to inspect the use of the term, off to Google. The numbers are sparse, and presented in descending order:

"political kabuki": 91 hits
"kabuki" used alone at National Review: 32 hits
"kabuki" used alone at Reason: 12 hits
"kabuki" used alone at The New Republic: 9 hits
"kabuki" used alone at The American Spectator: 8 hits
"kabuki" used alone at Mother Jones: 2 hits

There's just one hit from Z Magazine, but not in a political use. So much for it as a meme among the political scandal rags (as SC affectionately refers to the partisan commentariat).

Your host then formed a hypothesis that such a usage would be more out of bounds among mainstream newspapers than political magazines. With such low frequencies to begin with, this is all but untestable, but some amusing usages turned up nevertheless:

At the LA Times, 6 hits, all nonpolitical, including one line with the context: punctuates statements that he believes should be apparent to anyone harboring a shred of sense with hand and facial gestures suggesting Borscht Belt Kabuki". (The article's not available; this is just from Google's snippet of text.)

From the New York Times, 53 hits, all cultural, at least after a sort. What to make of a movie review that starts off " Viva Las Vegas, one of Elvis Presley's most popular vehicles, adheres as rigidly to formula as a Kabuki dance"?

From the Washington Post, 21 hits, including a Bill Clinton speech transcript, where the former President comments: "You know, this book, "Spin Cycle," it implies that this kabuki dance between the White House and the press is some kind of a recent phenomenon." It occurs in a few online discussion contexts, hosted by the Post, as well. A chat participant compliments Post humor writer Gene Weingarten: "Your line about the Raelian spokeswoman that she "looks like a kabuki Tweety Bird" was dead on." Meanwhile, Post movie critic Rita Kempley replies to a comment with "I liked Jeremy Irons as the Kabuki Morloch".

The Wall Street Journal isn't searchable online without a subscription (which SC has, but links wouldn't work). Opinion Journal is, though, and it appears that columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan has a bit of a taste -- but just 2 hits worth -- for the kabuki metaphor herself.

Taken as absolute numbers, this isn't exactly suggestive of "kabuki" as a hot metaphor for the political process, although it's clearly not an unkown one. It would be instructive to compare these frequencies with other political metaphors for catchiness, but a few cursory attempts by your host ("lock box" and "straight talk") proved to be not particularly interesting either (the latter complicated by its existence as something other than a John McCain 2000 primary slogan). Kabuki's an interesting metaphor for politics, but it seems destined to remain the preserve of terminal punditry addicts rather than a mainstream phrase.

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