A great many Democrats are increasingly worried that by the time their party gets to Denver for its national convention the level of ill-will between the Clinton and Obama camps will be so toxic the nomination may not be worth accepting – whomever wins.
Maybe.
But it’s instructive to read a little history about warring political candidates and their supporters. I’ve been doing that in a book by Robert Schnakerberg called, “Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults. Compared to Great Britain American political insults are quite mild, even civil.
Winston Churchill, the greatest man of the 20th century, was a master of invective. He took, it would appear, particular delight in targeting Stanley Baldwin, who at various times in Churchill’s parliamentary career was England’s prime minister.
On one occasion, Churchill said of Baldwin, “An epileptic corpse. Occasionally he stumbles over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”
On another, “A mixture of innocence, ignorance, honest, and stupidity He is a man of the utmost insignificance.”
When Baldwin died, Churchill said, “The candle in that great turnip has gone out.”
Ouch.
Another target of Churchill’s was Ramsay McDonald, a laborite and twice prime minister in the 20s and 30s.
Churchill once said of McDonald, “We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.”
Then, of course, there was Neville Chamberlain, who Churchill would replace as prime minister during England’s dankest hours – to the great relief of that nation and, in time, to the wide world over.
Churchill said of the man who appeased Hitler in Munich, “At the depth of his dusty soul, there is nothing but abject surrender.”
Others were tougher on Chamberlain.
Sir Stafford Cripps said of the English city where Chamberlain was born,” The people of Birmingham have a heavy burden, for they have given the world the curse of the present prime minister.”
David Lloyd George, a major figure in British politics, said Chamberlain “saw foreign policy through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.” He said Chamberlain had a “retail mind in a wholesale business.” And, finally Lloyd George dismissed him with this, “Look at his head. The worst thing Neville Chamberlain ever did was to meet Hitler and let Hitler see him.”
But it was left to Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery, to say to Chamberlain in 1940 in a House of Commons speech, “You have sat there too long for any good you have done. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” And, he went.
In more recent times, Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Maiden”, was a favorite target of laborite Tony Banks, who said of the prime minister, “She is about as environmentally friendly as the bubonic plague. I would be happy to see stuffed, mounted, put in a case, and left in a museum.”
Greg Knight, a conservative party member, was moved to say of Tony Blair, “He’s so vain he’d take his own hand in marriage.”
Many of these invectives were said during parliamentary debates in the House of Commons, when the object of their derision, sat but a few feet away on the opposite party’s benches.
Churchill himself hardly escaped the insults of others. Margot Asquith, wife of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, said of Churchill, “He would kill his own mother just so he could use her skin to make a drum to beat his own praises.”
Maybe the most famous putdown ever uttered in the House of Commons occurred when Lord Sandwich said to John Wilkes, “You will either die on the gallows or of the pox.” To which Wilkes responded, “That must depend, Sir, on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.”
Come August the Democrats will gather here in great numbers, regular and super delegates, to decide their nominee. Many of them will have a list of what Obama said about Clinton and Clinton said about Obama, but unless the present contest between the two spins out of control and they begin practicing the art of the insult as used by their political colleagues across the pond, their characterizations of one another will hardly be the stuff upon which political parties break apart.
George Mitrovich is president of The Denver Forum, a non-partisan public forum that has served Denver for 23-years. He can be reached at: gmitro35@gmail.com
