Don’t Mince Your Words Or Anything June 2, 2005 Lauren Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid lets it all hang out in the upcoming Rolling Stone interview. RS: You’ve called Bush a loser. HR: And a liar. RS: You apologized for the loser comment. HR: But never for the liar, have I? Catty, catty.
I still think my congressman, Fightin’ Pete Stark, gets the prize. Around the time of the Iraq war resolution, he made a speech on the House floor that started with the statement “the bottom line is I don’t trust this president or his advisors.” He also said in the same speech that Bush thinks Kashmir is a sweater.
I think most people think Kashmir is a sweater, since they still pronounce it as “Caj-mere.” Just in case it wasn’t obvious, it’s pronounced “Cash-meer.”
People don’t know how to pronounce Kashmir because the electronic media isn’t interested in it, so if Americans are going to learn about it, they’re going to learn about it by reading about it. I spent my whole childhood (and into college, sadly) mispronouncing words I’d only encountered in print. I don’t think it’s that big a deal.
I spent my whole childhood (and into college, sadly) mispronouncing words I’d only encountered in print. I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Sally — That’s extremely common among precociously well-read people, especially those who are hesitant to whip their fancy words out in polite conversation. If we’re not making mistakes in usage, pronunciation and so forth, we’re not trying hard enough.
I didn’t mean to include myself in the ranks of the precociously well-read. Thus, kind of illustrating my point.
I was so disappointed initially when Reid emerged as the leader. He has been so impressive – I feel bad about being disappointed. A friend tells me that Reid was once a prize fighter. This friend keeps saying that he’d love to see Reid haul off on Tom DeLay sometime. (Senate vs. House, indeed, but it would still be amusing).
I don’t know that Reid is doing the Democrats any favors by behaving all snarky-like. Dean, likewise, although he’s less snarky and just more of an ass (see today’s comment about a lot of Republicans never having made an honest living in their lives). It’s just not very statesmanly. Not that the Republicans have many statesmen, either.
Shankar, it seems to me that the majority of politics resembles entertainment more than policy-making. I wish for real statespeople, too.
I dunno. It seems to me that a lot of people who are now remembered as great statespeople could be pretty snarky in their day. Wasn’t Churchill pretty much world-renowned for snark? Woodrow Wilson was fond of implying that his political opponents were “disloyal Americans.” I think politics has always been a fairly nasty game.
So much of what comes out of politicians’ mouths is doublespeak garble that I’ll take any kind of honesty any way it comes.
Churchhill was certainly renowned for his snark. But the reason he’s so revered as a statesman is probably more because of speeches like his tribute to the RAF: “Never have so many owed so much to so few,” etc. Great snark and great rhetoric come from the same place–you’ve got to have a good wit or a good ear for dialogue. But one’s got more dignity than t’other. And yeah, politics has always been a mean game. But there’s a big difference between calling someone a loser, and, say, Cicero’s orations against Cataline. It’s all about the gravitas.
Yeah, but I don’t think the difference is the presence of snark or even of petty snark, because the statesmen do that, too. It’s the absence of the great rhetoric. And I suspect that kind of rhetoric doesn’t always work so well: a lot of people found Churchill melodramatic and over the top until he found a cause that matched his rhetorical style. I am tempted to write an ode to the blunt, plain-spoken, backroom wheeler-dealer kind of politician, which is a definite type in American politics. But maybe I shouldn’t. It’s true that LBJ got more done than JFK, but he’s still a less attractive figure in a lot of ways. I think most people do prefer the statesmen.