The Stupid Question

By D.J. Tice. Here's his question at The Big Question:

How does the media punish a U.S. Senate candidate for calling a U.S. Senator a "butt boy?"

Here is the quote attributed to Al Franken that is giving D.J. the vapors:

Sen Norm Coleman is…“one of the administration’s leading butt boys.”

Tice continues:

I lead a sheltered enough life that I had to have the meaning of “butt boy” explained to me. Suffice it to say that it is neither civil nor substantive.

Who explained it to you, Doug? Katherine Kersten? Hammer at Three Way News already dug out the Urban Dictionary definition of "butt boy":

A servile underling. Especially one who is also a sycophant. A suck up or brown-noser. Synonomous with "toadie" or "stooge." A butt boy does his Master's dirty work.

The CEO is sending one of his butt boys down to straighten out the mess in accounting.

That pretty much describes Norm Coleman, doesn't it boys and girls? Colorful, but entirely apt.

What Tice is trying to do here is obviously equate the use of the term "faggot" by Ann Coulter in describing John Edwards to Franken's use of "butt boy" to describe Norm Coleman.

Why is it, D.J., that we must attribute purity of thought to you, but not to Al Franken?

You know, D.J., Spot would have preferred Ambrose Bierce's definition of sycophant:

SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor. [italics are Spot's]

As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased

To fix itself upon a part diseased

Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,

It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,

So the base sycophant with joy descries

His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,

Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,

Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.

Gelasma, if it paid you to devote

Your talent to the service of a goat,

Showing by forceful logic that its beard

Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;

If to the task of honoring its smell

Profit had prompted you, and love as well,

The world would benefit at last by you

And wealthy malefactors weep anew—

Your favor for a moment's space denied

And to the nobler object turned aside.

Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires

Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,

Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly

To safer villainies of darker dye,

Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,

To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread

May see you groveling their boots to lick

And begging for the favor of a kick?

Still must you follow to the bitter end

Your sycophantic disposition's trend,

And in your eagerness to please the rich

Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?

In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,

And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!

What's Satan done that him you should eschew?

He too is reeking rich— deducting you.

Here's the best question of all, D.J.: how is it that you think the media, especially the news side of the media, should take it upon itself to punish at all? Put a quarter in the cuss jar every time D.J. Tice, our new arbiter of civil discourse, says so? Equip all journalists with handy individual soap packets so that they can wash out the mouths of offenders on the spot?

Spot says stick to the news, D.J., and let our Katie pump the innuendos.

Update: BTW, Spot gives the same advice to Eric Black.


Technorati Tags: Ambrose Bierce, Al Franken, butt boy