Words of Wisdom for Politicians

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 7, 2001 | by Ralph De Toledano

What the politicians and the pundits need, now that the nullius filius has departed the White House, is a new vocabulary to brighten up the national debate and to get rid of words that have worn out their usefulness or seem too harsh or just plain nonsensical. How much better it would be to return "gay" to its original meaning, and how beneficial to the muliebrous community. There is, after all, nothing gay about homosexuality, and it demeans those who apply it to themselves by giving the impression of giggling limp-wristedness.

Think of how much more dignified it would be if, say, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., were to declare to the Senate and the nation, "The time has come to end discrimination against the androgynous in the name of national muliebrity." Even Sen. Jesse Helms, RN.C., who doubtless would understand every word, might be moved to sign on for the project.

And it would save an awful lot of explanation to refer to those in and out of the Supreme Court who give a false interpretation of the Constitution by distorting its meaning to fit their own personal notions as "eisegetical." For instance, one might cite "the opinions of the eisegetical Madame Justice Ginsberg."

It also would be more accurate to discard the term "feminism" and to label it "misandry" (loathing of men by women). There is something too feminine about "feminism" something "agamous" (lacking in sexual organs) or, conversely, given to "blissom" (rutting like rams), something the hornless misandrists no doubt deplore.

By the same token, wouldn't it lead to friendlier controversy on Capitol Hill if a "thesmophete" (lawgiver) were to belabor a colleague for "agnosy" (ignorance) or "morosis" (feeblemindedness), instead of calling him a "liberal" -- a word that once meant what libertarian has come to mean? And "depotentiated," instead of thrown out, certainly would have sweetened the bitter pill for former vice president Al Gore. It would be more refined, too, to refer to Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman's yarmulke as a "calotte," and perhaps to take note of his failure to wear phylacteries as required of orthodox Jews.

Consider how the following biting remarks might be studied after appearance in the Congressional Record:

"I would recommend to sinistrocular and bicephalous bantlings the eolistic senior senator from Massachusetts: However his thallus may trissilate, he might do well to think through his isocratic ideology. He may play the role of a demophile, but his rhetoric is the propugnation of the coprology." Rough translation: "I would recommend to those who view the world exclusively through their left eye that they take note of the two-headed bastard and long-winded senior senator from Massachusetts: However he may quiver his fronds, he should reconsider his idea that everyone is equal (physically, mentally and in the sack). He may play the role of the lover of the people, but his rhetorical pretensions are in fact a defense of obscenity."

Who could take offense at such remarks directed in ribald fun at the earthy Ted Kennedy? And it would have the added virtue of driving the media crazy, much as it is addicted to allolalia. They were able to laugh long and heartily when Dan Quayle misspelled potato, but it sailed over their heads when Vice President Al Gore mistranslated E pluribus unum, the motto of the United States, as "From one, many" -- the exact opposite of its meaning. Copy desks would be paralyzed, and there would be a rush to brush the cobwebs off long-neglected dictionaries and philological abstracts. Oxyopia, or keen-sightedness, is not the long suit of today's journalistic gentry, and spotting the corrigible no longer is in style.

The press, as the Romans might have said, operates in coram populo, as do the politicians, so that bit by bit the double- and triple-talk is hailed as lucidity. How gratifying then if the politicians could better hide their meanings while sounding profound, as the TV reporters took it all down on video without understanding a word, and letting the Dan Rathers and Peter Jenningses sweat over it. The pundits could pontificate even more fearlessly, while the public yearned for plainspoken Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

And to think Bill Moyers, when he was President Johnson's press secretary, remarked: "The crisis of credibility has gotten so out of hand that we don't believe our own leaks." Moyers also was able to remark about his life at the White House: "The reason I left the ministry was because I wanted to be where sinners are. Looking around me, I am not disappointed." Occlusion and obfuscation in such company might even pass for civility. In the ensuing silence, the great machine of personal destruction might grind to a halt.

Indeed, the country would enter an age of adoxography, when good writing on base or meaningless subjects would emerge from the primal ooze of the politically correct -- to be followed, God willing, by an aeonian of philosophical re-examination. At that point, the liberals might no longer need to be amphibolic, that is, equivocative, and could return to the liberalism of, say, John Stuart Mill. By which time, no doubt, all of the lovely words in this learned column will appear in our dictionaries.