March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Calling a bleep a bleep on the campaign trail

One of my favorite excerpts in the entire body of Western literature is from Rostand’s “Cyrano De Bergerac.” It’s that bit, early on in the play, when a pompous viscount tries to put the swaggering poet/swordsman in his place. Cyrano’s nose, he observes, is rather large.

The crowd of bystanders recoils in horror, certain that the viscount will pay with his life for broaching the forbidden subject. Instead, Cyrano launches into an extended lecture on the fine art of the witty insult, such as how the viscount could have complimented Cyrano for providing a perch for songbirds or expressed concern about the fire hazard when he smoked a pipe. After giving numerous examples in prose, Cyrano composes an impromptu ballade on the subject, and, as he reaches the final rhyme, does, in fact, ventilate the offender’s ribcage.

On to a different stage, to a diffeent time and place. The other day in Illinois, Gov. George W. Bush and runningmate Dick Cheney are preparing to address thousands of supporters. The Republican presidential nominee spots New York Times reporter Adam Clymer in the crowd and observes that Mr. Clymer is a bleep. Not just a garden-variety bleep, but a “major league” bleep.

Mr. Cheney concurs. Adam Clymer is a “big time” bleep.

Mr. Clymer’s offense, apparently, is the authorship of numerous pieces of factual, thoroughly researched pieces of journalism that explore issues pertinent to the election in general and to Gov. Bush’s record in Texas in particular. The bleep in question refers to that keister-oriented portion of the human anatomy all well-bred first-graders disparagingly dismiss as potty talk.

We know the candidates’ innermost feelings for Adam Clymer because a microphone picked up the comment and broadcast it with enough decibels to be heard in neighboring Iowa. The candidates are remorseful, not for calling a guy just doing his job a major-league, big-time bleep, but for being unaware the microphone was turned on. It was, they say, supposed to be a private conversation.

This should concern the thoughtful voter on several levels. First, of course, is the numbness factor. You’re standing on a stage, thousands of eyes and ears are on you, half of the world’s press corps is there and you expect to have a private conversation? The podium bristles with microphones and you assume every one of them is dead? Can’t wait until these two get curious about that big red button in the Oval Office.

Second is the question of nature vs. nurture. Back in 1984, Bush the Elder, then vice president, boasted after a debate with Geraldine Ferraro that he “kicked a little bleep.” Clearly, the male members of the Bush household are a bit obsessed with matters of posteriority. Freud had strong views on such fixations; so, perhaps, should the thoughtful voter.

Then there are new reasons to wonder whether Gov. Bush has gained control of his inner smart-alecky teen-ager. He’s in a tight race for the highest office in the land, he’s running on the character issue, calling for elevated discourse, it’s the eve of a much-anticipated unveiling of his health-care plan and he can’t resist playing the spoiled suburban mall rat. All that’s missing is the backwards ball cap and the hip hop soundtrack.

No buts about it, though, the aspect of this rumpus that should have the thoughtful voter totally bummed out (registering 3.5 on the pun-o-meter) is that – assuming they knew the mic was on and that the premeditated intent was to play the anti-press card -calling Adam Clymer a bleep is the best these would-be leaders of the free world, these beneficiaries of first-rate educations, can do. Which brings us back to Cyrano and the concept that culture offers (to those who read a book now and then) a bottomless mine of insults that sting as they elevate.

They could have, for starters, have taken a Shakespearean approach, say from Richard III.

Bush: “Hey, there’s Adam Clymer. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.”

Cheney: “A big time poisonous, hunch-backed toad. Deep, hollow, treacherous and full of guile.”

Or from the realm of modern literary criticism.

Bush: Hey, there’s Adam Clymer. Reminds me of what Gore Vidal said about Truman Capote – a great zircon in the diadem of American literature.”

Cheney: “Or what Capote said about Kerouac – it’s not writing, it’s typing.”

Bush: “To hearken back to an earlier era, it was Henry Jones I believe who called George Bernard Shaw a freakish homunculus germinated outside lawful procreation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Or from politics.

Bush: “‘Seeing Adam Clymer in the crowd brings to mind that Churchill said a certain political rival had the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.”

Cheney: “Don’t forget that Churchill described a particularly annoying journalist as a fellow who occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”

Bush: “And on a more folksy level, remember what Harry Truman said about Ike – this fellow don’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday. You sure that mic’s on?”

Cheney: “Or this bon mot by Groucho regarding Chico – “Now there sits a man with an open mind. You can feel the draft from here.”

Unfortunately, the bleak intellectual landscape the gafe in the Heartland suggests is familiar territory. It was just late last year, as the primary season was getting under way, that Gov. Bush totally flunked, with no apologies or remorse, a pop quiz on the names of various important heads of state. It was given a Boston TV reporter who was, after all, just another major-league, big time bleep.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.


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