The Nth Degree

I know that political posturing leads to hyperbole.

I know also that words and phrases, especially idioms, do not always accurately reflect their "original" or technical meanings. This is especially true when math terms are involved.

Some Obama opponent quoted on the news - Paul Ryan, I think - talked about the public's mistrust increasing "to the nth degree," over the IRS scandal (or perhaps the AP scandal.  either way). 

I suppose that can never be proven false, because there would always be some n for which the statement is true.  Still, the intent is clear that Ryan, who should know better, is suggesting some exponential increase in mistrust.  I rather doubt that's true.

There is a distinction between "things that are your fault because they happened on your watch," and "things that are your fault because you caused them to be done."  Both are real, but the latter is much worse than the former.  It is fair that some of this sticks to a president, even if the opposite bias were occurring.  If that seems not comprehensible to conservatives, it's because you are too used to the bias of permanent federal officials going the other way.  Imagine if singling out Conservative/Tea Party/Patriot/Constitutionalist groups had happened under Bush.  Even though it was to his disadvantage, and he didn't know about it, he would deserve some blame, because it's a federal agency doing something wrong on his watch.

But not so very much blame.  I think the same holds here.  I feel Obama has dodged some deserved accusations by stonewalling the records, but that's not a reason to accuse unfairly in other instances, such as this one. 

I know, I know, it's never that clean, and you don't have to teach a cat to catch mice - just appoint cats to the right jobs and they will catch mice for you without being told.  But the distinction between Your Watch and Your Actions is an important one, and we should make it as carefully as we can.

And even if not, we should use our math terms more accurately.