It's the Season of the Dick

There's this cliche in television lawyer shows: an attorney seemingly recklessly says something unprofessional in court, is reprimanded by the judge and the comment is stricken from the record. The attorney apologizes, but then you see a little smirk--because whatever the lawyer wanted the jury to hear, got heard. Mark Halperin's smirk was kind of like that. Maybe his characterization of the President would be cut out, maybe he'd have to apologize, but in the meanwhile, it was out there. Everyone heard what he wanted them to hear. He said that President Obama was being a dick.

Ha, ha, ha.

He could have been more suave. I'm sure I heard Matt Lauer this morning call Obama's remarks "testy", and that only annoyed the shit out of me because a) Matt Lauer, and b) "testy"--really? Because I genuinely think the president is more than "testy" over some grandstanding congressional twits staging walk-outs and threatening economic disaster just to please the tiny percentage of tea-party fuckwits they for some dumb reason believe brung them to this dance. But that wouldn't have gotten the reaction he wanted--people discussing whether you can call the president "a dick".



Dick, dick, dick. Dick all day.  Were Obama's comments possibly on the money? Is it just possible that being in congress is a BFD and those people have a pretty serious job to do?  Is it just maybe a leeeettle bit possible that since the US Congress just doesn't win a lot of popularity polls, openly criticizing their political maneuvering might make good political sense?  You know, the kinds of things you might acknowledge if one was, I dunno, a paid political analyst?  Familiar with the game being played on both sides?  Like, for a living?  One of the serious people?

Oh, but no.  We're going talk about dick, now.

Halperin was "indefinitely suspended" from MSNBC and apologized, naturally. We don't have lese majeste in this country, and I'm really one to talk, having not long ago dubbed a number of horrid people "douchebags" in sheer frustration at a glut of stories about people who were simply so very, very wrong-hearted. In my humble opinion, of course, sometimes "dick" isn't even strong enough, and I've certainly called Bush worse. 

But then again--I'm not one of the serious people.  I'm watching this kind of concerned about the basis our elected leaders are making decisions on. If I were serious, I'd probably just sum everything up with "dick", if I were more amenable to gender-based invective.
The meta-conversation is:  Do we talk about Obama like a dog? Answer: yes, if you're a Kool Kid, you sure do.