Pence was speaking at a roast — the Gridiron Dinner — and said that Pete Buttigieg took “maternity leave.” That was the set up for the joke: “Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression.”
Pence defended himself this way: “The Gridiron Dinner is a roast. I had a lot of jokes directed to me, and I directed a lot of jokes to Republicans and Democrats. The only thing I can figure is Pete Buttigieg not only can’t do his job, but he can’t take a joke.”
That's not consistent with the Pence brand, which is to be relentlessly civil and predictably strait-laced. Even aside from that, it's just plain wrong to claim that a joke is directed at one person when you are using mockery aimed at a group. To say that a gay man is taking "maternity leave" is to mock gay people in general. Why would he want to do that? Also, he's making light of postpartum depression, a mental illness.
If Trump had made these jokes, it would be consistent with his brand. He's a comedian and he steps over the line to shake up the squares. But Pence?! He is the square. If you're the square, be the square.
He chose to wait [to come out] until after he graduated from college, after he had served in the military, after he had been elected mayor.... until after attitudes toward homosexuality had changed...
One kind of queer politics is rooted in ideas of liberation, revolutionary change, and solidarity. The vision of this politics is a society that is radically changed by many kinds of people fighting many kinds of injustice, a society in which economic, social, political, and sexual relationships have been transformed....
The other, more mainstream, and often more visible kind of L.G.B.T. politics aims to erase difference. Its message to straight people is “We are just like you, and all we want is the right to have what you have: marriage, children, a house with a picket fence, and the right to serve in the military.”....
Buttigieg embodies the second kind of gay experience and the second kind of gay politics.... Buttigieg is the ultimate candidate of the country’s post-2016 trauma. He is not a woman. He is not a socialist. He is decidedly not a revolutionary. He does not make big, sweeping promises...
MEANWHILE: "Did anybody catch a screenshot or see what [Washington Post writer Dave] Weigel tweeted? Supposedly he tweeted something from a movie that was clearly homophobic (towards Pete?), sparked some Twitter fury and took it down. Does anyone know what he did?" (Reddit).
"You’re looking at your options today, and you’re asking, 'Okay, can we win with Klobuchar? We don’t want to put Klobuchar up there because she doesn’t have a prayer. Trump’s gonna wipe the floor with her, and that would mean two women in a row get wiped out by Donald Trump. Two Democrat women in a row. We can’t have that! We can’t let that happen.' Then they’re sitting there and they’re looking at Mayor Pete — a 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage — and they’re saying, 'Okay. How’s this gonna look, a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage next to Mr. Man, Donald Trump? What’s gonna happen there?' They gotta be looking at that, and they’ve gotta be saying that despite all the great progress and despite all the great wokeness and despite all the great ground that’s been covered, America’s still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president. They have to be saying this, don’t they? Now, there may be some Democrats who think that is the ticket. There may be some Democrats who think, 'That’s exactly what we need to do, Rush. Get a gay guy kissing his husband on stage! You ram it down Trump’s throat and beat him in the general election.' Really? Having fun envisioning that. What are you left with? Crazy Bernie. They’re left with the avowed revolutionary socialist who isn’t even a Democrat. So which of those three…? They want to take all three out. They would like to get rid of all three of those, the establishment of the Democrats. But if they can’t, which of those three would they rather lose with? Who among those three losing will do the least damage to the Democrat Party going forward? That’s what they are facing, if you ask me."
We don't want to get into what Flush likes to kiss, other than to say it did earn him a Medal of Freedom. And is there any more word on an exact time that the grim reaper will dispatch Flush to the fires below? I ask for millions of like-minded people who want to plan their block parties.
I think it's interesting that anti-Trump, anti-Rush people would view what Rush said as homophobic. He's imagining that Democrats are thinking that voters are homophobic. How is that different from what Democrats are saying out loud when they say — and they say this over and over — that black people won't vote for Buttigieg? They're all but coming out and saying that black voters are homophobic? It is different in one way — it disparages black people. If it's not disparagement, but simply an effort to understand how voters react to candidates, then what's wrong with what Rush said. The speech is too clear?
By the way, it's fantastic to hear Rush Limbaugh going strong on the radio. Even Rush haters should feel cheered by a man's strength against the forces of nature.
Noël Coward composed this song after he and Beatrice Lillie attended a beach party given by Elsa Maxwell in the south of France, an event which his memory placed in either 1937 or 1938. The lyrics in the first stanza are based on a real life experience of Coward and Lillie: The two were invited to "come as they were," but on arriving they discovered the other guests were formally dressed....
Obama mocked Romney this way: "He said that he's 'very supportive' of this new budget, and he even called it 'marvelous' — which is a word you don't often hear when it comes to describing a budget." Comic pause. "It's a word you don't often hear generally."...
My first association, on hearing one man mock another for saying "marvelous," was: Gay. It's an I'm-more-manly move. I heard a smidgeon of homophobia....
I Googled "gay men say marvelous." Sorry, to be so crude, but research can be so easy and I got the most marvelous return. It's Noël Coward's "I've Been To A Marvellous Party," in which male homosexuality and excessive wealth are merged marvelously...
I went to a marvellous party we didn't sit down til ten
Y'know young Bobby Carr did a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men
And then Freda arrived with a turtle which shattered us all to the core
And then the Duchess passed out at a quarter to three
And suddenly Cyril cried 'fiddle-de-de'
And he ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea
I couldn't have liked it more...
I'm just waiting for young Paul Ryan to do a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men and then for Mitt Romney to suddenly cry "fiddle-de-de" and rip off his trousers and jump in the sea. And then Obama arrives with a turtle...
Now, here's The Daily Wire collecting other statements to the same effect:
National Review Washington Correspondent John McCormack noted: “‘colorful lights…’ ‘decorative brick…’ If a Republican released this ad…”...
Popular Twitter account Comfortably Smug wrote: “This whole ad is a homophobic dog whistle: decorative sidewalks and lights and pet adoption? Discomfort with African Americans? WHAT IS BIDEN SAYING?”
ADDED: This post got my "homophobia politics" tag, and I clicked and looked back to see where that went. The original post that motivated me to make the tag was "Emerging trend: Democrats insinuating that Republican politicians are gay" ("I'm saying this is a trend to watch, because I'm seeing the second example of something within one week"). That was something that was going on in 2014. Remember? I didn't.
AND: Lots of interesting stuff in the "homophobia politics" tag. Remember the homophobia politics used against Michele Bachmann (because of her husband)? John Roberts (because of his plaid pants)? Mitt Romney (because he said "marvelous”)? Eric Cantor (because the Governor of Montana had "gaydar")? Scott Walker (because as a young man, he did not respond to the young women who hung all over him)?
Now that Pete Buttigieg has been victorious (yes, victorious) over fourth-place Joe Biden in Iowa, and New Hampshire polls show Buttigieg continuing to gain momentum heading into the first primary, Biden has released an attack ad that paints Buttigieg as a mayor with misplaced priorities.
Biden's ad says Buttigieg "installed decorative lights under bridges" to create "colorfully illuminated rivers," and he "la[id] out decorative brick" on sidewalks.
So Biden is repeatedly trying to associate the word "decorative" with Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate with a serious chance at becoming president.
The repetition of that word — "decorative" — could not have been an accident.
One of the oldest stereotypes about gay men is that they're interested in interior decorating.
Yes, I know: someone's going to say I'm reading too much into it, oversensitive, etc. I know that response.
I also know that political attack ads are designed to operate on a subtle and sometimes subliminal level.
ALSO AT JOHN'S POST: The music playing when the ad talks about Buttigieg sounds an awful lot like "The Sugar Plum Fairy."
“There are so many haters out there on the internet,” DeGeneres told Hart. “Don’t pay attention to them... You can’t let them destroy you.... I think it’s perfect that all this happened... Because there has to be a conversation about homophobia... You’ve grown, you’ve apologized, you’re apologizing again right now, you’ve done it. Don’t let those people win, host the Oscars."
They still need a host, but should Hart reverse his decision? Watch the clips at the link. I think the stronger position for him is to resist them, unless they truly crawl.
“We’re back with this year’s Oscar host Kevin Hart,” DeGeneres joked after [a] commercial break.... He said he would be “evaluating” his decision to step down, but still seemed aggrieved over the “malicious attack” on his character....
He should be aggrieved! I'd love to hear how he talks about all this when he's not in the warm, fuzzy Ellen DeGeneres showcase. She did a fine job with her role, but notice how she's acting like she's boosting his self-esteem and challenging him, as if he needs to step up and be a winner. I think the people who drove him out are now exposed as the losers, so sticking to his decision isn't "letting them win."
The young guy they tear into is Dylan Jones, and let's see what's at that link:
Shame is largely a thing of the past and homophobia is, like, SO 2008.... Things still aren’t perfect. Of course, discrimination - particularly transphobia - is still rife in many schools.... But it’s way better than it used to be.... these kids have started to hit their late teens and early twenties, a sort of super-race has emerged, blinking, into 2018’s Instagram-hued social and professional stratosphere....
There seems to be an attitude among older generations of LGBTQ people, particularly older gay men, that their younger counterparts are “losing sight of the issues.”.... It must be hard to swallow, after going through such struggles, to see young, chatty, confident gay men swanning about like they own the place....
According to these self-appointed sanctioners, we’re allowed to fight for our rights, but we’re not allowed to enjoy them once we’ve got them. Instead of cracking open a Strongbow Dark Fruit and having a dance to Little Mix, we’ve got to sit back down, and somberly start drawing up plans for the next march.
All this raises the question – SHOULD young LGBTQ people care about their history? They’re certainly not obliged to. Why should they? This is just their lives. They’re existing as they should always have been allowed to exist – happily and freely. They shouldn’t be made to feel guilty, or even grateful for that....
I could say more, but I'll just say there's a big difference between:
1. Knowing history, venerating the heroes of the past, keeping vigilant about preserving liberty, and...
2. Seeing life in terms of endless grievances and yourself as a member of an identity group that must stay coalesced and ready for action.
ADDED: This controversy made me think about how we Baby Boomers grew up in the 1950s world that our parents generation suffered to create. We knew, theoretically, superficially, about the Depression and World War II, but we thought 1950s suburban American life was hollow and bland, and we just had to do something completely different.
Some were looking to him to send the column so they could read it. Some of these were anti-Trumpers:
“Please forward the full article that the dumbest president in the entire history of dumb states of America was alluding to in his recent tweet about himself... With apologies in advance for being the gazillionth person to ask.”
Some wrote to say "Fuck you," like the guy (named by Goodwin) who wrote "FUCK YOU!" 75 times and: “The buffoon actually posted your email address on his Twitter. I hope you get 3 million hate emails."
And: "I was subscribed to gay websites, and penis images were attached to a number of emails sent my way. All of which struck me as mighty strange. Here are these so-called liberals who still think the greatest insult is to call someone gay. Their homophobia is out of the closet."
Hillary Rodham Clinton has lately positioned herself on the forefront of gay rights, but tucked into a newly disclosed batch of her emails is a reminder that she had long taken a more cautious approach to the issue...
But, of course, she was cautious and wary of the media response. "Parent One" and "Parent Two" instead of "mother" and "father" is absurd bureaucratese.
A nice ego boost for Sarah Palin there, knowing she's got prime real estate in Hillary's head.
"The point of this story was not in my view sufficient to offset the embarrassment to the subject and his family. Accordingly, I have had the post taken down. It is the first time we have removed a significant news story for any reason other than factual error or legal settlement.... But this decision will establish a clear standard for future stories. It is not enough for them simply to be true. They have to reveal something meaningful. They have to be true and interesting. These texts were interesting, but not enough, in my view. In light of Gawker’s past rhetoric about our fearlessness and independence, this can be seen as a capitulation. And perhaps, to some extent, it is...."
[T]here was apparently a clear difference of opinion about removing the post between Gawker's parent company, Gawker Media, and the website's editorial brass. Gawker staff writer J.K. Trotter wrote that Gawker Media's managing partnership, which includes its legal counsel, actually had voted 5-1 to take the much-maligned article down over the protests of "every other member of Gawker Media’s editorial leadership."...
The website's editor-in-chief, Max Read, had defended the article's publication by arguing that the executive was fair game by virtue of his position with Condé Nast and the fact that he solicited a male escort while being married to a woman....
But Denton seemed to side with those journalists who had complained on Twitter that outing the executive wasn't truly in the public interest.
... Larry Gross, a professor specializing in LGBT and TV issues at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism said that in today’s climate “refusing to play a bisexual role is not a good career move. It’s pretty clear Luke will suffer as a result. Hollywood will either say he was unprofessional or a phobe of some sort"...
Yesterday, I said that I'm watching the "Emerging trend" of "Democrats insinuating that Republican politicians are gay," and I wanted a tag to express what I'm trying to say. The idea is that there is a background idea that a Republican politician is vulnerable to rumors of homosexuality on the theory that those who might vote for this person have an animus toward gay people.
This is only a background idea, not something to say directly. Obviously, you can't just blurt out your suspicions of gayness the way Brian Schweitzer stupidly did (described at the link). You need to find ways to insinuate, to say it without saying it — and I have long had a tag for that kind of thing: unsaid things.
Unsaid things is one of my favorite topics, and things that fall into this category are things that, aptly enough, most people would leave unsaid. There's a convention in human society not to outline the secret motives of others. As long as someone hasn't actually said something, you ought not to act as though you know what that thing is. But I'm here to transgress on that convention. I think I can and should do it because:
1. I know how to frame sentences so that I don't say what I don't know (using any number of phrases like I suspect that and What X could be thinking is or One might speculate that…).
2. It is my belief that high-level political players do a lot of dirty work this way.
4. I blog based on what I find interesting, and I think that there is nothing more interesting than the inside of other people's heads. Every day I celebrate the wonder of having a human mind of my own, and it is fascinating to look around at other people and know that each one of them contains an equivalent universe.
5. I have heard the moralistic chiding to take people at their word, but that can't be the general rule, not if you want to be a competent citizen in a democracy. In some human relationships, you might choose to take another person at his word, but that in itself is a decision based on an assessment of what you think is in that other person's head.
6. I've been part of the law and lawyer-manufacturing enterprise for 3 and a half decades, and I know an awful lot about the way language is used in manipulative ways to put ideas in other people's head without saying things that you have reason not to say. Lawyers' arguments and judges' opinions necessarily leave unsaid the things that don't belong within the legal framework. (Revisit item #1, supra.)
7. I've been pushed back so many times over 10 years of blogging. I have heard about how this sort of thing is unbecoming, unseemly, and unmannerly, and how no one is going to like me anymore if I don't stop. Which is to say, I've built up my toughness, and it makes me particularly fit to do something that needs to be done.
I'm saying this is a trend to watch, because I'm seeing the second example of something within one week.
Last weekend, I noticed that the Alec MacGillis hit piece on Scott Walker in The New Republic, which was mostly racial politics, had some material that I believe was intended to float the rumor that Scott Walker is a closeted gay man.
And today, here's CNN reporting that Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer recently said in an interview:
"If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say — and I'm fine with gay people, that's all right — but my gaydar is 60-70 percent."
"Don't hold this against me, but I'm going to blurt it out. How do I say this ... men in the South, they are a little effeminate... They just have effeminate mannerisms."
Now, I had to Google Schweitzer's name to find out that he's a Democrat, so that CNN article is also an example of another much more well-documented trend: mainstream media omitting the party affiliation of a Democrat who says or does anything bad or stupid (or submerging the party affiliation under enough boring paragraphs that it's as good as omitted).
Anyway, why would Schweitzer say something so stupid? It makes no sense. Should non-gay people be talking about their "gaydar"? Who brags about 60-70% gaydar? That seems like a high fail rate. And if he's not himself looking for sexual adventures, how does he know whether he's right or not, especially as he's purporting to detect gayness in men who are not openly gay? And, worst of all, if he thinks Southern men are just effeminate, doesn't that imply that Cantor would fall within the 30-40% who set off Schweitzer's gaydar but are not gay? I guess Schweitzer — who admits he knows he's just blurting crap out — just wanted to say that Cantor seems gay and then to take it back by saying, oh, but he's Southern, and Southern men always seem gay to me — which gratuitously insults both Southern men and gay men (and, in a way, women!).
How could Schweitzer go that badly wrong? Where did all that come from. Here's my suspicion. He operates with a backroom culture where people really do talk like that. The idea of floating the rumor that a Republican politician is gay comes up all the time, as does the idea that Southern men seem gay because they are effeminate. But the strategy would be to say something that puts the idea in our head without actually saying it. It's not the talking point, but the secret notes behind the talking point. Schweitzer just blurted out the secret notes.
Schweitzer seems to be really dumb. The trick is to do it in a smart way, so it's deniable and the person calling you on it seems delusional or weird. For example, back in 2005, I blogged about how I thought that the NYT tried to create the impression that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts was gay. I pointed to a lot of things about the NYT's presentation, including a photo layout that included Roberts wearing plaid pants. I got pushed back, ridiculed for talking about plaid pants. The NYT had the deniability it sought if, in fact, it sought to put that idea in my head.
This is a technique that requires some skill and subtlety, so if there is an idea in that Democratic Party backroom to screw up Republicans with gay rumors, they'd better take care who they let into that room. They've got to keep that kind of strategizing in the closet. They'd better have some good radar about who's too dumb/inarticulate to work that game. They've got to filter out the Schweitzers.
Meanwhile, you've got MacGillis (on Walker) and the writers and editors who put together that John Roberts piece. These are people who are capable of playing a subtler game, and that's the game I'm watching... in case it's really happening.
I need a good tag for this trend watch, but for now I'll revive the old "plaidgate."
Here's the scurrilous hit piece, "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker," which I first saw in my iPad on Saturday. The article went up Sunday evening, after I'd posted about it 3 times Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. My posts:
Saturday afternoon:"Look at the new New Republic cover, smearing Scott Walker for his 'toxic strain of racial politics.'" This post displays the cover, with what I read as a strangely sexualized headline "Scott Walker Is So Hot Right Now"* and the puzzling sub-head "Too bad he owes his success to a toxic strain of racial politics." I noted that headline inside at the article itself (which is also the headline on the TNR website now) was "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker." Sub-head: "A Journey Through the Poisonous World That Produced a Republican Star." I read the article and opined that TNR had nothing racial to say about Walker himself. Walker built his political career in the Milwaukee area, and the article is mostly about the racial demographics of the place and 2 talk radio hosts who are popular there.
Saturday evening:"... I almost feel as though I am bullying The New Republic at this point." The article was still not up, and I took that as a digital-age failure for TNR's editor and publisher, Chris Hughes (who, as the co-founder of Facebook, had seemed as though he was going to make TNR very digitally sharp, which was why I subscribed, and why I got early access via iPad).
Why did the editors of The New Republic — that venerable journal — think it was acceptable to title an article "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker"?
I did not give the typical conservative answer, which would be: Because it's liberal, and liberals can and will do to conservatives what conservatives can't get away with doing to liberals. That old rule of thumb is reasonably apt, but I don't think it is generally acceptable among liberals to use "whiteness" as the key word in an attack. I have a different answer, which you can read at the link.
Also, the Sunday morning post ends with a clipped out passage that I believe is intended to float the rumor that Scott Walker is a closeted homosexual:
Walker had an easy smile and impressive 1980s mullet, and he played on the football team, but his friends would apologize if they swore in his presence, and he wasn’t much for chasing girls. “He was a very nice-looking young man, always very neat in appearance,” says Neill Flood, the town’s fire chief, whose daughter was a year ahead of Walker in school. “He was the kind of guy who liked everyone, and everyone liked him. There was never any physical attraction for Scott, girls being all over him.” On Scott’s prom night, his mother recalls, he, his date, and some friends stayed up very late talking politics.
The girls hung "all over him," but "There was never any physical attraction for Scott"? He was "very neat in appearance" and not "much for chasing girls"? He spent prom night — a classic time for sexual adventures — talking about politics? I'm going to write a separate post on this topic, because I remember when the NYT tried a move like this when John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court.
______________________
Why did the editors of The New Republic — that venerable journal — think it was acceptable to title an article "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker"?
(Click images to enlarge.)
That's the first page of the article in the June 30th issue, which I started blogging about yesterday afternoon and which is still not up at the TNR website. The cover, as you can see in that post, does not use the title "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker," but the strangely sexual "Scott Walker Is So Hot Right Now." The cover has a race-baiting sub-heading — "Too bad he owes his success to a toxic strain of racial politics" — but that's smearing Walker with an insinuation that there's something racist about him, not the racist smear that he's excessively white.
Nor does that "Whiteness" title appear on the Table of Contents page, which refers to the article with the teaser "It was hard to believe that a politician so banal had been the catalyst for such turmoil":
Maybe "so banal" dog-whistles so white, but only insiders — readers who really get inside the pages of the magazine, past the cover, which anyone might see on a newsstand, or the table of contents, to which a casual browser might flip — only insiders see the title that slams a person for his excessive whiteness: "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker."
The idea, I suspect, is that the insiders are in the know and sophisticated and they'll feel pleased with themselves and cocooned within the self-congratulation that comes with their getting the reference: The title is a play on the title "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Ironically, plays on that title are so banal and interest in that 1980s book/movie has got to be at least as white as Scott Walker. (It's "a postmodern novel" about a "Czech surgeon and intellectual" who "is a womanizer who lives for his work... considers sex and love to be distinct entities... copulates with many women but loves only his wife.")
The TNR editors, I suspect, presume that their banal, white readers, lubricated by their own thrill at getting a reference, will accept what is unacceptable, a blatant statement that a politician is unelectable because he is too white.
And as long as I am showing you the inner pages of TNR, where the unacceptable is slipped in anyway, look at this passage, which jumped out at Meade and me yesterday as I read the whole article out loud:
(Click to enlarge.)
They don't come right out and say it, but they've put the idea in your head, haven't they?
Obama mocked Romney this way: "He said that he's 'very supportive' of this new budget, and he even called it 'marvelous' — which is a word you don't often hear when it comes to describing a budget." Comic pause. "It's a word you don't often hear generally."
This Reuters article takes the position that Obama meant us to think that a man who says "marvelous" is "out of touch" because "marvelous" is "a seemingly out of date" word. Reuters also quotes a polisci prof saying, "It's a word you kind of associate with the upper class, and I think that the intention was to tweak Romney for being wealthy and, you know, sort of brought up in the kinds of circles where they would say ‘marvelous.'"
Wealthy? Old fashioned? My first association, on hearing one man mock another for saying "marvelous," was: Gay. It's an I'm-more-manly move. I heard a smidgeon of homophobia. Perhaps I heard it because, a few days ago, on winning the Wisconsin primary, Romney introduced Ryan, saying: "Congressman Ryan, he's a great leader, wonderful speaker, but he's not gonna take Ann's place." (Ann being, of course, Mitt's wife.) At the time, I quipped: "Combatting the 'bromance' rumors!"
This is just a meme watch. Note that the budget Romney was talking about was Paul Ryan's budget. The alliance of Romney and Ryan is so good that I suspect the Obama campaign will toy with mockery that has a homophobic edge. Let's make their "marriage" seem unseemly. Not so blatantly that they can't deny it. Any homophobia can be disguised within a socially acceptable distaste for the rich. The word "effete" was practically created for this purpose. Do you remember when Vice President Spiro Agnew derided antiwar protesters as "an effete corps of impudent snobs"?
The word "marvelous" — which means "Such as to excite wonder or astonishment (chiefly in a positive sense); wonderful, astonishing, surprising; worthy of admiration" (OED) — is a very old word, going back to c1330: "Þe fift ledde Andalas, A kniȝt of meruailus los he was." (Arthour & Merlin.) The first use with modern spelling — the double L remains current — is from Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan ii. xxvi: "Miracles are Marvellous workes: but that which is marvellous to one, may not be so to another." And I like the D. H. Lawrence: "Their loving grew more mechanical, without the marvellous glamour." (Sons & Lovers xiii. 365.)
By the way, there's also an archaic and regional use of "marvelous," but that is as an adverb. You get things like: "Nancy Clemens... quoted a farmer who had been hurt in a motor accident: ‘No bones broke,’ said he, ‘but I sure was scratched up marvellous.’" (V. Randolph & G. P. Wilson Down in Holler 161.) That seems quite the opposite of effete. It's folksy. I could imagine some politician using that, probably quoting somebody... some farmer.
But Romney uttered "marvelous," the adjective. He was talking about Paul Ryan's budget, and Obama snickered. Am I wrong to hear a tone of homophobia? I Googled "gay men say marvelous." Sorry, to be so crude, but research can be so easy and I got the most marvelous return. It's Noël Coward's "I've Been To A Marvellous Party," in which male homosexuality and excessive wealth are merged marvelously. Listen to the whole thing, but here's the penultimate verse:
I went to a marvellous party we didn't sit down til ten
Y'know young Bobby Carr did a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men
And then Freda arrived with a turtle which shattered us all to the core
And then the Duchess passed out at a quarter to three
And suddenly Cyril cried 'fiddle-de-de'
And he ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea
I couldn't have liked it more...
I'm just waiting for young Paul Ryan to do a stunt at the bar with a lot of extraordinary men and then for Mitt Romney to suddenly cry "fiddle-de-de" and rip off his trousers and jump in the sea. And then Obama arrives with a turtle...
We're experiencing the Santorum surge now, and it seems that the conservatives looking for a way to stop Romney have simply converged on him after the sequential failure of their efforts to converge on Perry, Cain, and Gingrich. But why not Bachmann? She won the Iowa straw poll back in August. If she was that strong then, why was she denied her turn for a surge?
There was her blunder talking about the HPV vaccine causing mental retardation, but that was a single incidence of loose talk, relaying an anecdote, and I doubt if most people even remember that.
I think what has held her back is her husband. A candidate's spouse matters. It was recently reported that when Newt Gingrich was divorcing his first wife, he (supposedly) said to a close friend: "You know and I know that she’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a president." Now, Gingrich is on his third wife, and she's relatively young and pretty (though she strikes many people as weird). But Gingrich's decline coincided with some intense focus on Callista. I'm not saying his decline was all about Callista. He had his surge, and that drew all sorts of scrutiny and criticism, and there was plenty to bring him back down. Yet the wife — and the wives — have mattered.
My question is: Why did Michele Bachmann get passed over in the sequence of surges? And my answer is that once people saw what her husband Marcus was like, they excluded her from consideration. For a female candidate, the spousal question is quite complicated. We expect the candidate herself to live up to some of the expectations we have — consciously or unconsciously — of the wives of male candidates. But what of the husband? Who will be the first First Gentleman in history? What's he supposed to be like? The role needs to be invented. And it couldn't be invented with the raw material that is Marcus Bachmann. Once people noticed him and tried to imagine him as the first First Gentleman, they ceased to conceive of her as a possible President.
If you don't remember how Marcus Bachmann burst into the national consciousness, refresh your recollection:
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