Nastiness: Nothing New in this Nation
It never ceases to amaze when television news personalities and political operatives- those who should, and probably do, know better- bemoan what they determine to be the deteriorating level of discourse between political candidates and politicians- especially Republican candidates and politicians. Listening to these pontificators, one would be tempted to believe that the back and forth that exists in this year’s presidential campaign has hit a new low, but alas, such a belief would be nothing less than the product of purely partisan poppycock.
The most recent instance of hubris in these regards is the outrage being bandied about regarding the dust-up concerning Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, and Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi. A super-PAC opposing Donald Trump’s candidacy posted a semi-nude photo of Melania Trump, taken during her modeling days, with a message that basically said, “Is this what you really want in a first lady?” or words to that effect. Ted Cruz did not precisely condemn the ad, as Ted Cruz would never come out and condemn any ad that either helps his own campaign, or hurts an opponent’s campaign. Predictably, Donald Trump warned Ted to “knock it off,” or risk the release of unflattering information about Cruz’s wife. When the ad resurfaced, Trump released a tweet with two pictures- an unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz juxtaposed against a lovely picture of Melania Trump, saying, “No need to spill the beans…The images are worth a thousand words.”
To this, Senator Cruz responded, “It takes a lot to make me angry, but when you mess with my wife and children (no one has ever assailed Cruz’s children) that will do it every time. Donald, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”
Predictably, the major media and Republican apparatchiks like Katie Pavlich, a fellow of the National Review and a Fox News contributor, opened up both barrels on “the Donald,” with a full-blown diatribe of disgust voiced against Trump, essentially blaming him for bringing this campaign to an all-time low. Well, it’s not the first time that she has issued her invective against Trump, as she was one of two dozen conservative commentators who assailed Trump in a special issue of National Review on February 15th.
Well, with all due respect to Miss Pavlich, she knows better- far better.
Any student having a nominal knowledge of American history, knows about the political dust-up between Vice-President Aaron Burr, a Democrat-Republican, who failed in his attempt to acquire the New York governorship when President Thomas Jefferson had made it known that Burr would be dropped from Jefferson’s re-election bid, and the Former Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist, who said of Burr, “he a dangerous man, and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government.” (Sound familiar?) So angered with this slight, that Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel with pistols. On the early morning of July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, the duel took place, and Hamilton was mortally wounded.
In 1856, Republican Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts made fun of the speech impediment of Democrat Senator Andrew Brooks of South Carolina, and accused the South Carolina Senator of engaging in sexual relations with his own slave. Brooks’ nephew, Democrat Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, was so incensed on hearing this that he charged into the Senate chamber and, using a cane, savagely beat Sumner within an inch of his life. From the attack, Sumner suffered what would today be classified as traumatic brain injury, and he suffered with severe pain and debilitation for the rest of his remaining eighteen years.
When in 1950, music critic Paul Hume, penned a critique of President Harry Truman’s daughter, Margaret, writing,
“Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality … [she] cannot sing very well … is flat a good deal of the time—more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years … has not improved in the years we have heard her … [and] still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish”
President Truman wrote a letter to Hume, saying,
“I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an ‘eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.’ It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. Someday, I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! (Francis James Westbrook) Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you’ll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.”
That by a sitting president !
While it’s true that the race to the Republican nomination has indeed turned acrimonious, to suggest that this campaign has reached a new low in political discourse is as sanctimonious and suspicious a statement as the intention behind it. Such deception is neither journalistic nor altruistic. It is, however, the poison pen of prevarication that seeks to destroy, rather than to inform, and that is what is truly wrong with politics in America, today.
-Drew Nickell, 25 March 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.