What Now?Rude, Scurrilous, Insulting. So What Else is New?
By Laura Walcher
When Rahm Emannuel, the supremely un-shy White House
Chief of staff, described some colleagues as “retarded,” his
apology, while … declarative, was widely considered as highly insincere, and
didn’t get nearly the ink and air that the insult
drew.
And, that, friends, is how
things are these days.
Or not.
Rosemarie Ostler has produced a
handy book of
insults for our reading pleasure, called “Slinging Mud.
Rude Nicknames, Scurrilous Slogans and Insulting Slang …from
Two Centuries of American Politics.” Given the abundance of material, I’d guess
that Ms. Ostler either undertook a most daunting research project or has become
perpetually depressed.
Andrew Jackson probably drew as much oppositional ire in
running for president (1828), she reports, than any ‘til then. The collection of mud included his
“irreligious lifestyle,” his possibly being “over-educated,” (whoa, that
hurts. Maybe they meant “out of
touch with middle America.”)
alleged “youthful indiscretions,” which included “duels, brawls and
shoot-outs.”
Can Mitt compete with that?
“Nothing personal,” said former President Jimmy Carter when
he called the Bush administration, “the worst in history.”
D’you think Mitt, who seems reluctant to say anything definitive about anything or
anyone, may have the right idea?
The less mud you sling, the fewer counter-attacks you invite?
Not then. Not now. Today
even the absence of decisive opinion could be Twitter’s most
tweeted observation, to say nothing of MSNBC’s raging harangues, hanging Mitt
out to dry.
Remember this?
“I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack
Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re
no Jack Kennedy.” Poor Dan Quayle, as if he didn’t have enough problems in
1988, nearly crumbled at Lloyd Bentsen’s attack. By now, we’ve
heard that, read that, innumerable times.
You’ll recall that when, in discussion about what he
considered the Republicans’ wrong-minded ideas for change, President Obama
said, “You can put lipstick on a
pig. It’s still a pig.”
You couldn’t get away with that in the mid-1800’s – and
clearly
can’t get away with it now. Although the expression is a
time-honored idiom, Senator McCain, along with a cast of Republican thousands,
shrieked that Obama had called Ms. Palin a “pig.”
(Sarah, of course, had started it earlier, when she told the
convention that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was
lipstick. Considering the furor,
I’m willing to bet that
the President still groans at the episode, although it
undoubtedly taught him to be more careful.)
Well, nobody said the slurs had
to – or have to - be true.
Where are the fact-checkers when
you need ‘em?
I don’t mean to keep picking on Mitt, honest, but was it
really necessary to get everyone in Cornwall riled up over
his ridicule of “Wawa,” the town’s favorite
eatery?
Not only are you reading this here
(again!), but it’s become a popular bungle all over the web. It hasn’t done him any good at all to
explain, or complain (he was only kidding, jeez … ) or apologize.
(Actually, we have websites that specialize in apologies:
imsorry.com, perfectapology.com and others, but nobody
reads them.)
Mitt, take heart.
It’s been true for 200-plus years, and truer today than ever, as
PepsiCo’s CEO Indra Nooyi, in the
wake of her own organizational difficulties, recently moaned,
“… leadership is very difficult, especially in today’s
world, where the media doesn’t take time to (really) understand you!”
Never has.
Still, I strongly advise all public and private persons to
please, please, keep a civil tongue in your mouth. Not that even this excellent
advice can’t go wrong. Like Herbert Hoover’s good intentions and the derision
it elicited from Calvin Coolidge:
“That man has offered me unsolicited advice for the past six years
- all of it bad.”
It’s been in print ever since.
Ms. Ostler’s examples stop in
2008. It’s time for a sequel. ###
