I wrote last week that it is refreshing to know that one person in Washington can tell his political enemy to fuck himself and not feel obliged to apologize to generations yet unborn for action. Now, Anna Quindlen, in the latest Newsweek online, has wrung her hands beyond the poor abilities of Madge in a Palmolive commercial to repair.
Quindlen is worried that these Republicans are too damn manly for the good of the country. We’re “macho” and have little respect for the “tone in Washington.”
Well, the tone in Washington has needed some Republican testicular fortitude for a long time. Ms. Quindlen longs for the days when JFK’s press people lambasted a reporter for quoting Kennedy calling someone a “son of a bitch.” In those, in Quindlen’s deluded mind, using four-letter-words made one less of a man. No, Ms. Quindlen: in those days, it was just not published.
I say we take her back even further. If politicians handled viscious personal attacks of character better in 1963 than today, imagine how well they handled it in, say, 1804? How did Alexander Hamilton handle Aaron Burr’s insult? For those of you liberals who believe history is a waste of time, I’ll fill you in: Hamilton challenged Burr to a duel. Having lost his own son to a duel three years before, Hamilton pledged not to shoot to kill. He aimed about ten feet to the right and 20 feet above the head of his opponent. Burr hadn’t taken the pledge, though, and shot the nation’s first Treasury Secretary in the abdomine. Hamilton days the next day after 24 hours of excrutiating pain.
Were dueling not illegal, I’d ask Ms. Quindlen to meet me Weehawken, New Jersey next week to settle this like the men she dispises.