Tuckered Out

By Baxter

On a day that President Obama gave a huge, satisfying Presidential "Take that, you knaves" to Senate Republicans by naming Susan Rice his new national security adviser, we cats are musing on the burgeoning use of rudeness in politics.

For example, there's that wacky Code Pink lady who heckled Mr. Obama's speech on terrorism the other day. We thought the President was remarkably patient with her — more so than she deserved — and were impressed that he skillfully wove references to her outburst into the remainder of his text. In fact, we couldn't tell which was improvisation and which was the Teleprompter.

Michelle Obama, on the other hand, readily admits that her husband's talent for handling bizarre people doesn't easily transfer to other members of the First Family — namely, to herself. We cats cringed when we heard that a gay activist interrupted Mrs. Obama during her speech at a fundraiser last night. Ugh. The First Lady came down from the lectern and confronted the woman, who claimed to be "taken aback." Wait — what? You can't take what you dish out? "Taken aback," indeed.

Of course, for four years now, America has witnessed instance after instance of blatant disrespect toward the first African-American residents of the White House — from "You lie!" on down. So it's kind of comforting to know that it can happen to white people, too: Tory brats crashed Justin Trudeau's first policy press conference as Liberal leader in Ottawa today, flashing silly "homemade" signs and bleating mindless Conservative talking points. Like the Republican riot against the recount in Miami-Dade County after Election 2000, we cats have rarely seen anything quite so fake.

Still and all, we're tired of the incivility. With all the communications tools at our disposal these days, there must be better — or, at least, more clever — ways to make ourselves heard.

Dick Tuck, where are you when we need you?

IMAGE: Dick Tuck, running unsuccessfully for a California state senate seat in 1966. Not only did this campaign result in the most memorable concession speech in history ("The people have spoken....the bastards"), but this photo eerily echoes one of Tuck's best pranks on Richard Nixon: Getting Nixon's train to pull out of the station just as he started a whistle-stop speech. Great stuff.