WTF?! (and other Great Phrases You Won’t Hear from a Politician)

WTF?! (and other Great Phrases You Won’t Hear from a Politician)

One of the myriads of “rights” we give up, elected officials, is the right to call a spade a spade.  Oh, we can “straight talk” all we want.  But, let’s be honest, most of that straight talk is the repeat straight talk sound bites we’ve all heard before.  What we really need is the ability to punctuate with curse words, as necessary.  For the purposes of posting this to an unknown-aged readership, I will try to avoid showing off the bad words I know by using code.  I reserve the right to use words I can find in the bible, even if used FAR out of context.

While I am not suggesting that cursing is a sign of an intelligent mind or a full and robust vocabulary, it is unfortunately what our audience understands these days.

For instance, if I could just come out and call my state party chairman an “ass clown,” it would help readers understand just how foolish the grass roots folks in the party were to appoint him chairman, that his continued leadership of the party is a scary joke (clowns are scary), and exactly why we have an ongoing feud.  “Jackass” might be more accurate, but that is about his personality (which everyone already knows, so it would not only be vulgar – but wasted- use of perfectly good cursing). 

And, while tweeting “WTF?!” would accurately reflect my reactions in real time to actions by my colleagues, local lobbyist lies, and the press, I can’t really post that on Twitter.  Rather, I have to find polite ways of saying something is wrong, stupid, immoral, or embarrassing.  It is the “F” in “WTF” that is all too well understood by many and prevents me from even tweeting a well-understood acronym, even though in contemporary society, it would be the most succinct and accurate remark (not to mention it keeps me within my 140 character limit).

I can’t tell you the number of times I have second-guessed myself when I initially employ nicer bad words like “damn,” “hell,” and “crap.”  The first two are in the bible; the last one is commonly used in prime time TV. But, alas, no one wants to hear or read their elected official using these perfectly tuned words of punctuation.  So, I edit.

Sometimes I think that one of the reasons everyday people feel disconnected from politicians is that they are always such damn goody two-shoes in their public speech.  Hell, even Mormons cuss – albeit they make up their own nonsensical lexicon to do it.  But, you won’t EVER hear one of my LDS colleagues say “that’s a bunch of jungle” or “this freaking fool” or my to-date personal favorite “oh, bungee-jump!” in a public setting.  Even THEY know that a fake cuss is a real cuss to their brethren LDS listeners on the outside.  Well, that and other people would think they were freaks for saying nonsensical phrases.  I won’t touch that, though.

So, the lesson for the day is that if you want to know what many of us fighting the good fight for you REALLY think, just add profane adjectives intermittently throughout our speeches and editorials and tweets.  When in doubt what to use, I will suggest you utilize the European favorite that can be used most flexibly as either a noun, adverb, verb, adjective or stand alone expletive.  (Hint: it is the “F” in “WTF.”)  This will produce the closest to reality sense of the passion we have on our issues and maybe help relieve the misconception that we don’t relate and don’t really understand your own passions on these issues.

Thank you.