LETTERS FROM THE GLOBAL PROVINCE
Scoundrels: Where Are They? Now That We Need Them, Global Province Letter, 18 April 2018
The Lovable Scoundrel Theory. Close readers of the Global Province will know that we have a fondness for lovable scoundrels who laugh a lot and are not above good measures of sin and debauchery now and again. In politics this means they fess up to their sins, tell slightly off color jokes, go dancin' when they should be working, and make fun of the other hacks who moralize too much while driving the country to rack and ruin.
For instance, we delight no end in all the tales about Mayor Jimmy Walker, who led New York City in the years leading into the Depression, who had vaudeville girl friends, kept the speakeasies opened, and wrote ebullient songs such as "Will You Love Me in December As You Do In May." A pal of ours from the 50s, when railing against the then mayor, who was a slug and a no-good, praised Jimmy, "Jimmy, you know he stole from us. But so what. He always gave us a laugh or two and made us feel better about life."
Another winner was the Silver Fox. A four-time leader of Louisiana, who is still going, though a few naysayers think he is over the hill, Governor Edwin B. Edwards puts Huey Long to shame. Once at a press conference, when dealing with a pesky stringer for the New York Times, he asked her what parish in the state she hailed from (we can't remember but would like to think she came from St. Tammany Parish). To her reply, he offered a quick quip, "Honey, y'all aren't needing a hospital down there, are you?" He had a quick line for most anything.
The Silver Fox, as he was known, delivered up some immortal words in his campaign against Governor David Treen. He allowed that "The only way I can lose this race is to be caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."
In these ornery times, we have elevated our lovable scoundrel addiction to an august political theory. That is, never trust a politician who doesn't make you laugh a whole lot all the while cashing in on the fruits of high office.
The Death of Laughter. We notice that smiles are dimming, jokes are far and few between, TV shows are all shoot 'em ups, and the country is groaning about how good things used to be. That is, humor is hard to come by. Even the cartoons in the New Yorker have turned stale, and the magazine is no longer the talk of the town.
A rancher of our acquaintance is fond of saying that you should never trust a man who will not take a drink. There's very little gaiety when ice cubes are never splashing around in the glass (If you are a drinker, insist on big nuggets, rather than the pitiful machine generated shavings that the bars all use these days). So we say don't trust a man who won't take a drink and who doesn't know how to smile a whole lot.
Washington is now filled with mugs whose faces constantly scowl and who scam the country out of billions and billions of dollars (Just witness the current so-called the Tax Cut and Reform Bill of 2017). These dreary chaps and much else in Washington have caused people to weep and snarl.
What we need of course are lobbyists and pols who laugh a lot and steal a little. Pikers who don't work too hard like Jimmy Walker and Edwin Edwards. Fortunately Mark Twain agrees with us, so we must be on the right track. He favored a president who easily confessed his sins but lived a joyous, sinful life. We refer you to his A Presidential Candidate, New York Evening Post, June 9, 1879. It concludes:
My financial views are of the most decided character, but they are not likely, perhaps, to increase my popularity with the advocates of inflation. I do not insist upon the special supremacy of rag money or hard money. The great fundamental principle of my life is to take any kind I can get.
The rumor that I buried a dead aunt under my grapevine was correct. The vine needed fertilizing, my aunt had to be buried, and I dedicated her to this high purpose. Does that unfit me for the Presidency? The Constitution of our country does not say so. No other citizen was ever considered unworthy of this office because he enriched his grapevines with his dead relatives. Why should I be selected as the first victim of an absurd prejudice?
I admit also that I am not a friend of the poor man. I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned, he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands and to improve our export trade with that region. I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: "Desiccate the poor workingman; stuff him into sausages."
These are about the worst parts of my record. On them I come before the country. If my country don't want me, I will go back again. But I recommend myself as a safe man -- a man who starts from the basis of total depravity and proposes to be fiendish to the last.
Happy Warriors. If joy ain't coming out of the bottle, and some minor league log rolling is not stirring up Washington and all the state capitals, you know we are not being led down the right garden path. We want a senator like Ev Dirksen, who said, "A billion here and a billion there, and soon you are talking about real money." We like it that even though FDR finally had to push speakeasy Jimmy Walker out of office, he still managed to buy a case or so of hard liquor for his larder just before Prohibition started ruining America We're looking for scoundrels who tell good stories and really don't hurt their fellow men. We're agin mean-spirited poltroons whose parents spared the rod and, further, dosed their children with daily doses of narcissism.
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