If you're talking insults, you have to talk Shakespeare. The man who is known for some of the finest turns of the English language, who coined "All the glitters is not gold" and "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" and "Jealousy is the green-eyed monster" was also adept at the art of the put-down. From "All's Well That Ends Well" there's "Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee." From "Henry IV Part I" there's "Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish!" And from "Titus Andronicus" perhaps the first "mom" joke ever: "Villain, I have done thy mother."
That set the stage for Don Rickles and "Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder?" as well as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and "Three months out here supporting Michael Jackson. Do you realize you could have been head movie usher by now?" But these days if you want to get into the thick of it, you don't look to stages at comedy clubs or late night TV, but rather to the arena of politics.
Forget the Congressional niceties of "I yield to the gentleman from Kansas." The present occupant of the White House has upended congeniality in Washington in a way never seen before. From "Crooked Hillary" to "Sleepy Creepy Joe," President Trump tags his opponents and critics with names designed to demean and belittle them. You can argue whether they resonate or not, but from a strictly literary standpoint they are elementary school taunts at best. One could easily imagine a third grader saying "No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet." Compare that with the Sir William's "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" and it's no contest.
But it's not the putdowns from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that define the state of art these days, but rather those utterances emanating from the other side of the planet. For when Trump hated Kim Jong-Un, the ruler of North Korea, and reached into his insult quiver for a zinger, the best he could come up with was "Rocketman." Kim replied with far more, formulating a putdown that included a word that, even if you didn't know its meaning, sounded seriously harsh: "Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say." Surely the Bard himself would have been impressed.
In historical fact, you can make a case that the Hermit Kingdom is perhaps the world's preeminent superpower in insults. Nearly 50 years ago they laid into LBJ as a "war maniac" and a "living corpse" and haven't taken a deep breath since. Leader after leader has come under the verbal barrage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. George Bush was described as a "tyrannical idiot" and "political imbecile who lacks even an iota of elementary reason, morality and ability to judge reality as a human being." Barack Obama was somebody who "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being." John Kerry had a "hideous lantern jaw" while "his behavior fully revealed once again the U.S. inveterate nature as a hypocrite who has deceived and mocked mankind with all sorts of gimmicks." And after Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a "whack job" the DPRK hammered him as "a man mixed with human dirt who has lost basic judgment and body hair." Ouch.
More recently they took aim at South Korean leader Moon Jae-in: "He truly is a shameless man." And they were just getting started: "We even question if his thought process is sound when he mentions 'talks' between North and South while playing out war scenarios that plan to destroy most of our armies in 90 days." And then the kicker: "that kind of thinking is enough to make the boiled head of a cow laugh." Say what you will: that is the long ball of insults.
They might have a "beautiful friendship" now, but when it sours - and it will – Trump better step up his game. If the best you got is "Lyin Ted Cruz" and "Leakin' James Comey," it's game over when the other side trots out this about a defector: "Despicable human scum, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal." As Sir William might say, "Forsooth! Thy tongue doth have sting!"
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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves a good put-down. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
That set the stage for Don Rickles and "Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder?" as well as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and "Three months out here supporting Michael Jackson. Do you realize you could have been head movie usher by now?" But these days if you want to get into the thick of it, you don't look to stages at comedy clubs or late night TV, but rather to the arena of politics.
Forget the Congressional niceties of "I yield to the gentleman from Kansas." The present occupant of the White House has upended congeniality in Washington in a way never seen before. From "Crooked Hillary" to "Sleepy Creepy Joe," President Trump tags his opponents and critics with names designed to demean and belittle them. You can argue whether they resonate or not, but from a strictly literary standpoint they are elementary school taunts at best. One could easily imagine a third grader saying "No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet." Compare that with the Sir William's "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" and it's no contest.
But it's not the putdowns from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that define the state of art these days, but rather those utterances emanating from the other side of the planet. For when Trump hated Kim Jong-Un, the ruler of North Korea, and reached into his insult quiver for a zinger, the best he could come up with was "Rocketman." Kim replied with far more, formulating a putdown that included a word that, even if you didn't know its meaning, sounded seriously harsh: "Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say." Surely the Bard himself would have been impressed.
In historical fact, you can make a case that the Hermit Kingdom is perhaps the world's preeminent superpower in insults. Nearly 50 years ago they laid into LBJ as a "war maniac" and a "living corpse" and haven't taken a deep breath since. Leader after leader has come under the verbal barrage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. George Bush was described as a "tyrannical idiot" and "political imbecile who lacks even an iota of elementary reason, morality and ability to judge reality as a human being." Barack Obama was somebody who "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being." John Kerry had a "hideous lantern jaw" while "his behavior fully revealed once again the U.S. inveterate nature as a hypocrite who has deceived and mocked mankind with all sorts of gimmicks." And after Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a "whack job" the DPRK hammered him as "a man mixed with human dirt who has lost basic judgment and body hair." Ouch.
More recently they took aim at South Korean leader Moon Jae-in: "He truly is a shameless man." And they were just getting started: "We even question if his thought process is sound when he mentions 'talks' between North and South while playing out war scenarios that plan to destroy most of our armies in 90 days." And then the kicker: "that kind of thinking is enough to make the boiled head of a cow laugh." Say what you will: that is the long ball of insults.
They might have a "beautiful friendship" now, but when it sours - and it will – Trump better step up his game. If the best you got is "Lyin Ted Cruz" and "Leakin' James Comey," it's game over when the other side trots out this about a defector: "Despicable human scum, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal." As Sir William might say, "Forsooth! Thy tongue doth have sting!"
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford loves a good put-down. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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