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Someone please get this man a dictionary

Jill

Because he’s having some trouble with definitions:

So last month when Enron’s head lobbyist, Linda Robertson, reborn as the Fed’s head lobbyist, attacked congressmen pushing for an audit of the Fed– primarily Grayson and Ron Paul– as ignorant of the difference between monetary policy and fiscal policy, Grayson reacted by pointing out that Robertson has a long and well-known career as a “K Street whore.” She shills for whoever pays her.
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Alan Grayson didn’t say they should all be lined up against a wall and shot; he probably wouldn’t even agree with that as an excellent way to help get the country back on a good footing– especially because there actually are some good one in the lot. But those good ones do not reside on K Street and no one not of that K Street Culture of Corruption world would count Linda Robertson as one of the good guys. She was, after all, the head of Enron’s lobbying office– a position that defines the word “whore.”

I’m not actually sure that heading a lobbying office is how we define the word “whore.” Perhaps Klein meant, to him,”whore” means “a woman I don’t like”?

(For the record, I think it was a pretty screwed up thing for Grayson to say, and I’m glad he apologized. There are plenty of ways to criticize Enron lobbyists without misogynist and sexualized name-calling. He was wrong, he owned up to it, and now it doesn’t do liberals much good to stand up for him. Just take the hit on this one, guys, and let’s all move on).

Thanks to Julian for the link.

16 thoughts on Someone please get this man a dictionary

  1. I was really irritated and hurt that Grayson went there, but I’m glad he apologized fairly quickly.

    I lean towards going easy on Grayson for this, a) because I like him as a politician b) because I know how engrained “whore” as insult is. I thought I never used it as an insult, but recently realized I was using it in contexts like “attention whore” and “fame whore”. It’s been tough to train myself not to say those.

    The use of the word as insult contributes to stigmatizing sex workers, and it’s also deeply misogynistic.

    I would prefer to call people like the Enron lobbyist something more gender-neutral, like “slime-trailing rat-f*ckers”.

    Now some (male) progressives are saying Grayson shouldn’t have apologized. Sigh…

  2. No doubt this was in ppoor taste but Grayson made the error of hiring (if I recall correctly) Matt Stoller, a man who often exhibited the peculiar combination of of cluelessness about and contempt for women and women’s issues when he was at MyDD.

  3. The apology, for me, doesn’t remove or ease the pain I feel when I read that, having been recently called the same thing by someone I thought was a friend.

    This sort of statement should never have been made — it denigrates the women who work there, for one, often with all manner of related issues, by using their lives as an insult, and then makes it worse by assigning that person into a category obviously the speaker (be it Grayson or anyone else) has little concern or awareness of.

    I get considered a whore because of my manner of dress a lot, and so maybe I’m a tad oversensitive — but it hurts not because there’s anything wrong with whores, but because the people using it have no understanding of the life they live.

  4. There’s a few metaphors which are completely built around the shaming of sex, so ingrained is it into our culture. In addition to whore meaning ‘someone who accepts money to do something they should be ashamed of’—which is obviously the sense Grayson was using—there’s also masturbation meaning ‘wasting time on something that no one else benefits from’, as in mental masturbation. These are kind of interesting, actually; I wonder how many there are.

  6. Nope.

    This post gets it exactly right on the Grayson “whore” comment:

    Anyone who wants to make that into an anti-feminist comment can bite me. Joe Lieberman is a whore. It’s the term I choose, as a writer and a feminist, to describe what he is doing to SELL OUT AMERICA. If in this era of deep change and national crisis certain feminists choose to sit on their vaginas and debate nomenclature because “words have power”? Glad your trust fund allows you all that time to major in women’s studies, sister.

    That’s why I tipped there, and not here.

    Also – as one of the links in that post points out, if “whore,” used within the context of Washington sellouts sounds like an anti-female term to you, here’s two words you might wanna make the effort to recall: Jeff Gannon.

    That’s why I tipped there

  7. Lobbyists are kind of like prostitutes; advocating for something you believe in is exhilirating and satisfying. Advocating for something you pretend to believe in and getting paid for it is the prostitution equivalent. So in this game, sex and advocacy are things that should be saved for when you really care, and these people dish one or the other out for money.

    Also, people call men this word, too. I think it just means “people who pretend to be sincere in exchange for money.”

  8. All this comparing of politicians and lobbyists to sex workers is offensive to sex workers. I’d say the average sex worker contributes way more to the country than the average Congressperson or lobbyist.

  9. What term to use? I’m not trying to defend “whore” in this context, but I can’t think of a non-stigmatizing term that conveys the same idea. “Hack,” possibly, but that’s somewhat bland.

    norbiz, I too think you’re missing the point a bit.

    AJD, I’m not sure I see what’s objectionable about that use of “masturbation.” Not that masturbation’s a bad thing but I doubt you’ll find many people who’ll say it’s particularly important or anything more than a leisure activity.

  10. Myrmidon: A soldier or a subordinate civil officer who executes cruel orders of a superior without protest or pity

    If you just exert yourself, you will find English has got your back.

  11. Ummm … I’m feeling a little bit sensitive about people making sweeping statements about what sex workers do. sex workers pretend to be sincere in exchange for money? And, therefor, using a word so full of contempt for sex workers, or anyone perceived to share qualities with sex workers, is justified? Could you elaborate on your vast experience with sex workers that leads you to this conclusion?

  12. man. i messed that up. i meant to quote this :

    Lobbyists are kind of like prostitutes; advocating for something you believe in is exhilirating and satisfying. Advocating for something you pretend to believe in and getting paid for it is the prostitution equivalent. So in this game, sex and advocacy are things that should be saved for when you really care, and these people dish one or the other out for money.

    Also, people call men this word, too. I think it just means “people who pretend to be sincere in exchange for money.”

  13. I think the criticism of the original post misses the mark since one of the definitions of “whore” is “A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.” (Dictionary.com) The problem is not that he used it wrong, but that he used sexist misogynistic term as a term of contempt. This definition is is derivitive of contempt for women being involved in sex and therefore compromising their virtue.

    In law its pretty common for people to call certain experts plaintiff’s or defense whores because they will say anything for money as opposed to give their honest opinion. I have been for quite a while trying to figure out a way to express contempt for such people without using the word whore and I have yet to come up with a word that really fits the bill.

    I disagree with Tom Foolery up above, myrmidon does not work. It connotes a loyal follower or automaton (based on the original ant people) they may be ruthless but there is no connotation of principles for sale.

    The closest I can think of is mercenary or hired gun, but again they don’t really carry the right nuance.

    I think the problem is that English doesn’t really have our back, at least when it comes to expressing negative opinions of people. Many of the words seem to be based on denigrating some group. “Lame” “idiot” “Hysterical” “dumb” all have strong even nuanced meanings, but all have lots of baggage.

  14. I disagree with Tom Foolery up above, myrmidon does not work.

    I disagree with your disagreement! It’s true that Myrmidons are loyal, but the source of their loyalty isn’t connoted in the word itself, so it doesn’t exclude the possibility of having said loyalty purchased. For that reason, I think it’s a far better term to use than the one Grayson used, because it focuses on what’s really wrong with the behavior of some lobbyists — the willingness to do or advocate abhorrent things without questioning their employers.

    If it’s really important that we get the money in there, you can call them “money-grubbing myrmidons,” and get some alliteration in there, too.

  15. well geez, isn’t an intrinsic part of sex work that you’re not just sleeping with guys you would normally want to sleep with? That’s called “dating.” Doesn’t prostitution involve sleeping with guys you wouldn’t want to sleep with sans payment? And, like, pretending you want to?

  16. Well, I never!
    hmph.

    And the word is “Shill” isn’t it? It’s one of my faves, I ask people alla time “are you a fool or a shill?” but people just get mad, prolly cuz I exposed their shillfull behavior.

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