{"id":7010,"date":"2006-03-30T14:52:51","date_gmt":"2006-03-30T19:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7010"},"modified":"2006-03-30T14:52:51","modified_gmt":"2006-03-30T19:52:51","slug":"adventures-in-obscenities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/adventures-in-obscenities\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in obscenities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though it may not be obvious at first, this story<\/a> seems to have a political angle.<\/p>\n

This is a story about words we can’t print in this story. You probably hear these words often, and more than ever before. But even though we can’t print them — we do have our standards — we can certainly ask: Are we living in an Age of [tag]Profanity[\/tag]?<\/p>\n

Nearly three-quarters of Americans questioned last week — 74 percent — said they encounter profanity in public frequently or occasionally, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. Two-thirds said they think people swear more than they did 20 years ago. And as for, well, the gold standard of foul words, a healthy 64 percent said they use the F-word — ranging from several times a day (8 percent) to a few times a year (15 percent).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought about these poll results after hearing more about Supreme Court Justice Antonin [tag]Scalia[\/tag]’s run-in<\/a> with a photographer at a church in Boston.<\/p>\n

Smith was working as a freelance photographer for the Boston archdiocese’s weekly newspaper at a special Mass for lawyers Sunday when a Herald reporter asked the justice how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.<\/p>\n

“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said. The Italian phrase means “(expletive) you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The more I thought about it, the more I remembered similar examples from recent years — all of them regarding elite Republicans. Dick Cheney, on the Senate floor, told one lawmaker to “go f— himself<\/a>.” During the 2000 campaign, Bush told Cheney, “There’s Adam Clymer, major league asshole<\/a> from the New York Times.” In 2002, Bush poked his head into a national security meeting to announce, “F— Saddam<\/a>, we’re taking him out.” In 1987, Bush approach the Wall Street Journal’s Al Hunt and, in front of Hunt’s 4-year-old daughter, said, “You no-good f—ing son of a bitch<\/a>, I will never f—ing forget what you wrote.”<\/p>\n

At a minimum, I like to think that if “values voters” are concerned about the coarsening of our discourse, they won’t be able to blame Democrats.<\/p>\n

Update<\/em>: An emailer reminds me that Scalia isn’t the only one fond of hand gestures<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though it may not be obvious at first, this story seems to have a political angle. This is a story about words we can’t print in this story. You probably hear these words often, and more than ever before. But even though we can’t print them — we do have our standards — we can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}