TAKE THE PLEDGE!!

                    

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS A WORD SOME MAY FIND OFFENSIVE!

                I got a call last week from a reporter asking about Andy Dillon’s appointment as Rick Snyder’s State Treasurer. The Democrat Speaker of the House working for the Republican Governor? “Will your GOP colleagues accept that?” asked the lady. “Won’t there be any desire for payback and revenge?”

 

                “Well,” I said. “In the first place, I don’t have anything really personal against Andy Dillon, and don’t know anyone who does. But even if I did--even if I did—it wouldn’t matter. Why? Because we don’t have time for that bullshit!”

 

Silence...

 

                The lady reporter paused. Silence.

 

                “That’s right!” I said. “No more bullshit! None. We don’t have time for any of that. Getting even, tit-for-tat with the Other Guys, partisan crap, playing political games to make the Other Guys look bad and us good—all that bullshit. We don’t have the luxury of indulging in that stuff anymore. We have a serious job to do and not much time to do it, so all that garbage has to go. In fact, I’ll take a pledge! Call it the No-Bullshit Pledge. We can declare the House of Representatives a Bullshit-Free Zone!”

 

Did You Get All That?

 

                I took a breath. “Did you get all that?”

 

                She was quiet.

 

                “I can repeat if you want exact language.”

 

                “That won’t be necessary,” she said in a very small voice.

 

                “Do you need any spellings?” I said.

 

                “No, thank you.” She said something off-phone. Then returned. “I have to go.” I looked three days for the quote, before I realized the newspaper wasn’t going to print it. Darn! Maybe I should have used a different word. My wife and office folks all objected to the word, and told me I had to find a euphemism for it.

 

"What About the Children?

 

                “How about “malarkey?” suggested one woman.

 

                “You could say ‘unproductive nonsense,’” opined another. “Or just say ‘Bee Ess.’”

 

                “That word is unworthy of one holding such office as you do,” scolded one of my schoolboard ladies. “You are a role model for our children, and should use language that is an example! Shame on you,” she said before going on to lament her millage proposal, which had inexplicably failed at the polls.

 

A Confession and Apology!

 

                Well, I have a confession to make to all of you. I want to apologize to everybody. I am deeply disappointed in myself and have let everyone down. Despite more than 40 years spent writing for publication, talk radio and TV, and despite much soul searching and research, I must honestly admit that I have failed to find an adequate substitute for the word ‘bullshit.’

 

                I am not proud of this deficiency. My idol, the great Winston Churchill, would not have used it. I’m sure Winnie would have picked up his cigar and growled out a defiant repudiation, “nevah shall the British Empiah bow before the bloated bahbaric bahstions of Brahmin Bovine Afflatus!”

 

                Abe Lincoln would talk about “the fateful course of digestive cattle by-product.”

 

FDR Would Never Say it. But Harry Truman...?

 

                But that was another age, a golden civilization of eloquence. These are less elegant times, animated by a Jacksonian spirit of American straight-shooting, no-nonsense, plain speaking. Sure FDR would never have used the word, but Harry Truman might have! Here in Michigan, we’ve had a Governor who can make words stand up and dance like the Midland High School Pompom Squad. If grandiloquence equaled job growth, La Granholm‘s Michigan would rival World War II for full employment. Instead we’ve had eight long years of…well, you know what.

 

                So with regret and apology to the more sensitive and fastidious souls among us, I give up. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried. But nothing really states so quickly, accurately, and recognizably what Michigan has run out of time and tolerance for. It’s time for plain speaking.  Instead of finding elegant  ways to say it, I’ll just promise not to do it. Accordingly, I now hereby make and take the Pledge.

 

                I hereby pledge that I will conduct myself and Michigan government in general, free from any all forms of…(drum roll)… bullshit.  

 

                 That may not totally fix Michigan, but it sure makes a good first step.

 

               

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