UNITED STATES President Barack Obama and other American presidents were as prone to cuss as President Duterte, and all you need to do is browse the Internet before you start condemning him or imposing your own questionable level of morality.
Newser, an American news site, founded in 2007 by journalist/media pundit Michael Wolff and businessman Patrick Spain, the former CEO of HighBeam, known for its vivid cultural and political reporting, said:
Barack Obama: Famously called Kanye West a “j__s.”
George W. Bush: When discussing Syria in 2006, he said, “See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s__t and it’s over.”
George HW Bush: When discussing his 1984 vice-presidential debate performance, he said, “We tried to kick a little ass.”
Jimmy Carter: The former prez did use “rough language,” but his funniest faux pas was unintentional: “I want to know the Polish people” was translated into Polish as, “I want to have carnal knowledge of the Polish people.”
Richard Nixon: Complained about Harry Truman’s use of “hell” and “son of a b__h,” but was later—thanks to the Watergate tapes—found to have used quite a bit of bad language himself.
Lyndon Johnson: Among the choice quotes attributed to him: “I never trust a man unless I’ve got his pecker in my pocket” and “I want someone who will kiss my ass in Macy’s window, and say it smells like roses.”
In a copyrighted story in 1912, NBC reported: “Richard Nixon may hold the unofficial record for being the most openly profane US president — probably because he recorded much of what he said in the Oval Office. In a taped 1971 conversation between the president and two of his aides, Nixon called Mexicans “dishonest,” said blacks lived “like a bunch of dogs” and San Francisco was full of “fags” and “decorators.” And that was just one conversation.”
“When President Obama called Mitt Romney a ‘b__r,’ in the pages of Rolling Stone this year, it set off a brief firestorm,” and “defenders of the Republican candidate were shocked—shocked!—that the man holding the highest office in the land would resort to such language.”
In truth, the halls of the White House (like nearly every other house in the country, with the apparent exception of Romney’s) have heard no shortage of profanity over the decades. It’s a dirty job, leading the free world. Sometimes, it takes a few dirty words, Rolling Stones reported.
Aude Guerrucci-Pool reported (Getty Images): While campaigning for president in 2000, George W. Bush leaned over to his running mate, Dick Cheney, as they waited at the podium for a rally to begin and commented on the presence of New York Times reporter Adam Clymer. Believing he had an audience of one, Bush called Clymer a “major-league a__e.” Trouble was, the microphone in front of them was already live, and many in the audience heard the offhand comment loud and clear.
After he’d taken office, Bush used his sense of humor to offer an apology of sorts when he taped a message for the press corps attending an annual dinner, calling Clymer a “major league ass…et.”
On Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Gardner (Getty Images) said: “Honest Abe evidently loved a good off-color joke. In Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis bends the ears of an anxious telegraph crew with one of the president’s favorite shaggy-dog tales, recounting the tale of Ethan Allen encountering a portrait of George Washington in an outhouse in England after the Revolutionary War. His hosts were eager to see the reaction of their visitor, who stumped them by approving: There is nothing to make an Englishman s__t quicker than the sight of Gen. George Washington.”
So, why worry about President Duterte’s profanity? What is important is that he accomplished more in just so short a time than any of the presidents before him.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.