The timing lent extra resonance to the president's speech and gave commentators a historic context.
And this independence of thought gives commentators a good deal of power.
Bank mergers, staff sackings, higher charges to customers and the more impersonal style of electronic business all gave commentators and their readers and listeners something to whine about.
"'Brexit' is arguably politics's most important contribution to the English language in over 40 years, since the Watergate scandal gave commentators and comedians the suffix '-gate' to make any incident or scandal infinitely more compelling," said Helen Newstead, Collins's head of language content.
This gives commentators of a certain age the chance to refer to Ian Faith, the cricket bat-wielding manager of Spinal Tap who met career adversity with the words "we're not getting less popular – it's just our appeal is becoming more selective".
Adler's attack fits nicely into the long tradition of writers assaulting each other with bitterness and has given commentators a chance to reach for their best prose and weigh in on the New Yorker's past and present merits and wonder who or what killed it if it is dead.
Apple unveiled a radically new iOS 7. It gave commentators hope that exciting new products are right around the corner.
Its video, incorporating references to the bungled Katrina rescue efforts in New Orleans and to the Black Lives Matter social protest movement, goes beyond the lyrics of the song and has given commentators from the left and right plenty of fodder.
JCM It is so rare that male politicians give style commentators anything other than a new hairdo to deconstruct.
4. Give us commentators who are well-informed and entertaining, and who don't continue to make sexist comments about the athletes (see above).
And like, I think, Barry Davies (again) said about it, it's just a gimmick to give the commentator more time to identify the goalscorer".
