Remember that kid in elementary school that used to taunt you on the playground? He probably grew up to become a member of Congress.
A study by a Harvard professor finds that 27 percent of external communications by members of Congress is taunting other legislators:
To come up with this insight, King and two graduate students analyzed 64,033 press releases sent out by all U.S. senators from 2005 to 2007. They used a computer program to sort them into different categories, based on their content.
[. . .]
Now, it’s not earth-shaking news that legislators like to insult each other. But what King did is quantify how much they do it: more than a quarter of the time.
(Via: Neatorama)
April 12th, 2011 | 2:26 pm
“…27 percent of external communications by members of Congress is taunting other legislators”
That only leaves 73%, then, for moving but irrelevant anecdotes and statistics isolated out of meaningful context.
Hardly seems enough.
April 12th, 2011 | 4:52 pm
I don’t mind the taunts and insults, except that our Congressmen and Senators are so bad at it. Those who want to see the art form at its peak must go to Question Hour at the British House of Commons. And, of course, the undisputed master of the art remains Winston Spencer Churchill. Some of his gems:
On a member of the government prone to delivering bombastic messages and losing his temper: “The honorable gentleman blows in, blows up, and blows out”.
Sir Samuel Hoare: “Like a mackerel in the moon light, he glows and he smells”.
On Ramsay MacDonald: “A sheep in sheep’s clothing”.
A truly scathing description of Ramsay MacDonald: “I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as ‘The Boneless Wonder’. My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralising and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see the The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.”
On Clement Attlee: “A modest man with much to be modest about”
On Sir Stafford Cripps: “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire”.
On Thomas Driberg: “He is the man who brought pederasty into disrepute”.
On Aneurin Bevin: “Unless the right honourable gentleman changes his policy and methods and moves without the slightest delay, he will be as great a curse to this country in peace as he was a squalid nuisance in time of war”.
And on himself: “We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glow worm”.
The one first rank insult I cannot ascribe to Churchill, is this one by Charles Wilkes, responding to an opponent who said he would surely die either on the gallows or of the pox: “That depends, My Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress”.
April 12th, 2011 | 7:30 pm
You’re probably on the something. A current U.S. Congressman from PA was an high school classmate of one of my step-daughters. When they were in high school, he once pushed her off of the auditorium stage.
April 12th, 2011 | 11:11 pm
“When they were in high school, he once pushed her off of the auditorium stage.”
As Mr. Dooley said, “Politics ain’t beanbag”.
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