I’d call this an example of being “hoist with one’s own petard” if that wasn’t such a violent, militaristic image.

Before I saw this story, it never occurred to me to wonder what a “petard” even was:

Democrats have seized on Republicans as the party of unlimited secret money.

The only problem: so are Democrats.

Hoist!

In recent days, Obama released an ad blasting “secretive oil billionaires” for attacks on him, Nancy Pelosi unveiled a campaign slogan, calling for “a new politics free of special interest influence,” and the Democratic National Committee released a Web ad accusing Mitt Romney of lying about his ties to a super PAC that’s spent millions supporting him.

…But this year, Democrats are playing the same game. Obama’s team has blessed a network of super PACs trying to raise the same seven-figure checks as Romney’s. And Obama’s allies have gone even further than Romney’s, setting up nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors at all.

In fact, top Democrats are so ardent about the need to raise unlimited — and sometimes secret — cash this year that some operatives aren’t pleased about the recent attacks, grumbling that it makes it a whole lot tougher to get wealthy liberals to fork over mega-checks when the politicians who’d benefit are ripping Republicans for taking the same types of contributions…

… the Obama campaign’s juggernaut fundraising makes the president an especially poor messenger for the attacks, reasoned one Democratic operative familiar with the party’s outside money operation.

“When you’ve been talking about raising $1 billion, you really shouldn’t be talking about money in the political process,” the operative said.

We here at The Trog have noted several times (here and here) the number of incredibly rich individuals giving millions to liberal organizations in order to – a la those evil, manipulative Koch brothers – influence the political arena.

Those millionaires, of course, go unnoted by the liberal establishment, because they’re having too much fun saying “Kochsucker.”

This is so well established, in fact, it’s hardly worth writing another blog post about it. As juicy and tempting as the above story is, we all already know that Democrats and liberals are complete hypocrites when it comes to political money. Why even bother pointing it out again? Why waste another blog post?

I’m not. I’m writing a post about the phrase “hoist with your own petard.”

Did you think it was “on” your own petard? Me, too. Did you think “petard” was some weird euphemism for “ass?” Me, too.

But, no:

A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications.

…The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one’s own petard, which means “to be harmed by one’s own plan to harm someone else” or “to fall into one’s own trap,” literally implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one’s own bomb.

A bomb. Like this (skip ahead to about the :35 mark if you’re impatient):

That’s a petard!

Or, conversely:

Etymology:

The word petard comes from the Middle French peter, to break wind, from pet expulsion of intestinal gas, from Latin peditum, from neuter of peditus, past participle of pedere, to break wind; akin to Greek bdein to break wind.

Um…sorry, no video example of that.

Point being, I learned something today. The phrase “hoist with one’s own petard” means to blow yourself up with your own bomb, a la Wile E. Coyote. So to use that phrase in a political context is incredibly violent, akin to wishing someone else dead.

We here at The Trog shrug our shoulders and don’t really regret any times in the past when we might have used this phrase.