Sendups & putdowns
HAS THERE been a dumbing down of of the ruling classes? Nowadays there seems to be more reliance on tanks and lawyers than on a quick mind and a sharp tongue. Is the age of the putdown dead?
Here's a quick history of putdowns and sendups. It is hoped that readers will email us with contemporary examples of the art.
Good putdowns are spontaneous, they are delivered under pressure, and they cut the mighty down to size, leaving them baffled and floundering. Any award for the best putdown ever would have to go to SIGMUND FREUD for his subtle mauling of the Gestapo in Vienna in 1938.
Freud was one of the lucky Jews granted permission to leave Austria. He was penniless because the Nazis had seized his bank account but before he was allowed to leave for England, the Gestapo demanded he sign a declaration that he was satisfied with their conduct and had no complaints against them.
Freud signed with a flourish and added, as if writing a reference for a housemaid, "and I can thoroughly recommend them in every way."
RONALD REAGAN was a hard man to put down because he smiled at barbs and was quite happy to tell stories against himself. Gore Vidal called him a "triumph of the embalmer's art," making Vidal himself seem like a malicious old man.
Gerald Ford was funnier with: "Ronald Reagan doesn't dye his hair, he's just prematurely orange."
But Reagan was funniest with an account of his own gaffe at a state dinner in honour of the then French President, Francois Mitterrand: "Mrs. Mitterrand and I started through the tables, the butler leading us through the people, and suddenly Mrs. Mitterrand stopped.
"She calmly turned her head and said something to me in French, which unfortunately I did not understand, and the butler was motioning for us to come on, and I motioned to her that we should go forward, that we were to go to the other side of the room. Again, very calmly, she made her statement to me."
Finally an interpreter got the message through to Reagan: he was standing on the hem of Mrs Mitterrand's dress.



A Dr Seuss parody firmly planted the knife between BILL CLINTON'S shoulder blades:

I did not do it in a car
I did not do it in a bar
I did not do it in the dark
I did not do it in the park
I did not do it on a date
I did not ever fornicate
I did not do it at a dance
I did not do it in her pants
I did not get beyond first base
I did not do it in her face
I never did it in a bed
If you think that you've been misled
I did not do it with a groan
I did not do it on the phone
I did not cause her dress to stain
While talking to Saddam Hussein
I did not do it with a whip
I did not fondle Linda Tripp
I never acted really silly
With volunteers like Kathleen Willey
There was one time with Margaret Thatcher
I chased her round but could not catch her
No kinky stuff, not on your life
I would not, could not, with my wife
Now that Miss Flowers' tale of woes
Was paid for by my right-wing foes
And Paula Jones and those State Troopers
Are just a bunch of party poopers
I did not ask my friends to lie
And then just hang them out to dry
I did not do it last November
And if I did I don't remember
I did not do it in the hall
I could have but I don't recall
There was no sex at Arlington
There was no sex on Air Force One
I might have copped a little feel
And then endeavoured to conceal
But never did these things so lewd
At least not ever in the nude
These things to which I have confessed
They do not count if we stayed dressed
I never used that big cigar
You must believe me Mr. Starr
I did not know this little sin
Would be retold on CNN
I broke some rules my mama taught me
I tried to hide but now you've caught me
But I implore, I do beseech
Do not condemn, do not impeach
I might have got a little tail
But never ever did inhale



Insulting MARGARET THATCHER was pointless. Like the Id monster in "Forbidden Planet," she gained strength from hostility.
The Rev. Ian Paisley called her "Jezebel."
Clement Freud, Sigmund's grandson, called her "Attila the Hen."
Norman St John-Stevas, who was supposed to be on her side, called her "the Immaculate Misconception."
It was all water off a duck's back. Mrs Thatcher cared only about winning. She never worried about making enemies. She always spoke her mind. As Anon. said: "She came, she saw but she did not concur."
So how is the current crop of world masters doing?
Bush the Younger would rather send in the Heavy Mob than bandy words. Remarks that make GEORGE W. BUSH look silly are usually remarks that have been made by George W. Bush. For example:
"Drug therapies are replacing a lot of medicines as we used to know it."
"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."
A Google web search reveals billions of these Bushisms. When Al Gore invented the Internet he probably foresaw that it would be devoted to pillorying George W. Bush.
With so many own-goals by the world's leading statesman, maybe putdowns have had their day. But no, they are still doing their cruel work. Consider this exchange between Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, GORDON BROWN, and Peter Mandelson, once the Labour Party's leading spin doctor, schemer and fixer but long since disgraced and demoted to obscurity.
Caught without his mobile phone, Mandelson asked Brown to lend him 10 pence to phone a friend. Brown replied: "Here's 20 pence. Phone them both."

© 1990-2003