Ah, the good old days! Duels, beatings on the floor of the Senate, Reps exiting the House through the windows to avoid a vote!Jumping Frog wrote:There is a long and vigorous history of insulting politicians in American culture. When a malfeasant idiot presumes to feed at the public teat, their decision to enter public life makes them fair game for virtually any odious insult.
I don't apologize a bit for referring to him as a self-medicating food addict.
Thomas Jefferson's critique of President John Adams included the accusation that he was "a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
Adams responded with having Jefferson described as "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father ... raised wholly on hoe-cake (made of coarse-ground Southern corn), bacon, and hominy, with an occasional change of fricasseed bullfrog. ..."
Modern American political vitriol doesn't even begin to hold a candle on the contemptuous insults hurled daily in the British parliament.
I always liked that Andrew Jackson called John Quincy Adams a pimp and scurrilous panderer, after Adams called his wife a felonious slut and Jackson himself a debauched bigamist.