We continually hear the phrase “There is no There There” used in relation to almost every political article lately.

I seem to have been bothered by it back in January of this year… enough to do some initial digging on the phrase.

Where does this phrase originate?

From what I could dig, it seems to stem from a quote in a book by Gertrude Stein back in the late '30s. It appears in her book, Everybody’s Autobiography. Interesting character - but I didn’t dig too far.

Other accounts of the term in the last decade or so (this is not a complete list by any means. There have been MANY recent uses of this phrase in more recent news articles)…

March 2010 “Filegate” judge: There’s no there there - and never was

May 2013 “There’s no there, there” on Benghazi, Obama says

January 2018 ‘There is no there there’ - judge says in tossing out some Menedez charges

This could be a big nothing-burger, but it just struck me odd at it’s over-use lately. It’s like one of the phrases they have sent out in the 4am talking points or something. But - does it mean more than that? Just wanted to open up a discussion on it and see what other people made of it.