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The trouble with bad manners, Bill Buckley once said, is that they sometimes lead to murder.
Buckley was perhaps the most well-mannered contrarian journalist in the business, and he had a genius for friendship.
Considering the disposition of political forces in Connecticut – Democrats own the state, lock, stock and barrel -- most contrarian journalists would necessarily fall on the Republican side of the political barricades. They would also be conservative or libertarian. Buckley s last significant collection of his writings -- Happy Days Were Here Again -- was subtitled, provocatively, “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.” Those who knew him well will testify that Buckley could handle disagreement without flyting off the handle.
Buckley’s irrepressible good humor always stood him in good stead. Asked by a New York Times reporter during his run for mayor of New York City against John Lindsey what he would do if – miracle of miracles – he actually won the race, Buckley responded he would hang a net outside the window of the New York Times’ editorial floor, to catch the bodies as they fell.
The front page, top of the fold Hartford Courant headline reads “GOP leader calls for apology after video.” The video featured Lee Elci, 22 year radio talk show host, “a conservative who is running as a Republican” against Democrat state Senator Martha Marx of New London, and a gaggle of pearl clutching Democratic poohbahs such as state Attorney General William Tong, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
“Elci,” the Courant tells us, “was temporarily taken off his radio show until after the Nov. 3 election after Marx raised complaints that he would have an unfair advantage of promoting his own campaign without equal time for her. The latest dust-up came at a Democratic event with top state officials, and video of the event is now playing on Elci’s Facebook page as a 30-second advertisement. The video shows Marx pointing to the camera and saying, ‘I have an A--hole running against me, and I hope that gets on Facebook’.”
Governor Ned Lamont joined in the merriment, according to the Courant report: “’Martha will tell you that her opponent is an absolute idiot ---hole.’ Lamont’s fellow Democrats are seen laughing and smiling in the video. Marx then says, ‘He can take his big mouth that I have silenced and go back on the radio.’ Republican Party Chairman Ben Proto seemed more surprised than abashed. He told the Courant, “I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the governor call anyone an A--hole.” Proto added he thought Lamont owed Elci an apology.
No apology was forthcoming from Lamont’s flack catcher Lauren Gray, a spokeswoman for the Lamont campaign, who said that the governor was attempting to make a joke in comments that were taken out of context.
Elci put it all down to the expected Sturm und Drang of political campaigns: “My feelings aren’t hurt,” Elci told The Courant in an interview. “I’m a big boy with a thick skin,” hardened after more than two decades of political buffering.
Proto, while avoiding vulgarity, was less placid in his response: “’I’d say she’s as dumb as a stone, but that would be insulting to stone,’ Proto told The Courant. ‘Everybody in that room knows that Martha Marx is not the brightest bulb on the tree, so they’re trying to figure out how to protect her because they’d rather have a stupid Democrat than a smart Republican in the Senate. And they have one in Martha.’”
Good to get these things out of your system; such flushing helps drive off insomnia.
The differences between the right and left in America are serious. That has been the case for decades, even before Buckley raised aloft the flag of American conservatism. Elci, always opening himself to critics on the left, has passed the Buckley test for 22 years in broadcast journalism; Marx has fallen short. And the Democrat Party titterers mentioned above, often the targets of Elci who even under awkward circumstances has managed to maintain his manners, need never fear that they will incur the wrath of free speech for me but not for thee left of center bootlickers in New England’s media. They are fast making Barry Goldwater a prophet unloved in his own country. If you cut out New England and California, Goldwater once said, you’ve got a pretty darn good country. Goldwater didn’t say “darn.” He brashly used the more vulgar D-word, demonstrating to all that there is a place in competitive politics for jocular vulgarity.
The chief problem with Democrats in Connecticut is not that they are vulgar. Both Blumenthal and Lamont are millionaires with millionaire manners who live in toney Greenwich Connecticut, the headquarters of millionaire self-sufficiency. Lamont in particular has spent millions financing his own campaigns, which believes him of the necessity of grubbing for dollars among the plebs. The Democrat Party in Connecticut is now a hegemonic force that rivals the monarchy of the Sun King. If the No Kings folk were serious in their assaults on monarchs, they would be picketing under Lamont’s windows. Elci says these kinds of thing aloud, always minding his manners. That’s why Marx called him an A-hole, to gain favor among Connecticut’s modern updated kings.
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