New Policy On Swears

For the first two years of this blog’s existence, I made a conscious effort to avoid profanity. Well, most of the time. I mean, you can’t go two years without an occasional goddammit or kiss my royal Irish arse, can you. But it’s been more or less PG-13 around these parts, most of the time.

You may have noticed that that’s changed lately. Not that I want to overdo the swears, but let’s face it. There comes a time when a man’s gotta drop an f-bomb or two, because sometimes there’s fuck-all else you can say.

Sometimes, as in times like this:

Making good on his threat promise that he’s not going away, ex-Congressman Joe Walsh reared his head Friday morning to blast the first lady for traveling to her hometown of Chicago to attend slain 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton's funeral.

In a series of tweets first reported by DNAinfo Chicago, Walsh ripped Michelle Obama’s attendance at the funeral of the teenaged inaugural performer as “political.”

(Via Huffington Post.)

Here’s what former Rep. Walsh tweeted, if you must know:

"Heartbroken" Michelle Obama attending funeral of Hadiya Pendleton. I guess the other 553 murder victims didn't break her heart. (1/2)
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 8, 2013

Most of the 553 Chicago murder victims in 2012 & 2013 were young black males. Is she attending this funeral to make a political point? (2/2)
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 8, 2013  

First of all, “WalshFreedom”? Really? Could you have a more inflated opinion of yourself, you one-term jackass?

But that’s really a minor irritation when you consider the substance of what he said. He criticized Michelle Obama for attending a funeral. For a fifteen year old girl. Who was murdered. In Michelle Obama’s hometown.

Seriously, if that doesn’t justify a whole lotta swears, I don’t know what does.

We could, of course, talk about the facts. We could point out that while Chicago’s murder rate is unacceptably high, there were 943 murders in Chicago in 1992, the last year of George H.W. Bush’s presidency. We could point out that the number of murders in Chicago steadily declined to 433 in 2011, which is a 54% decrease over two decades. (Source: Chicago Police Department, 2011 Chicago Murder Analysis (.pdf file), p. 4.) Yes, the murder rate rose to 5o6 in 2012, a 17% increase in just a year, and that’s cause for concern.

But we could ask, not without some serious justification, where were the oh-so-concerned Republicans back when nearly a thousand people were killed in Chicago every year and a Republican was in the White House? Because they weren’t criticizing presidents and first ladies back then, that’s for damn sure.

And so we could ask, Who’s fucking politicizing what, jackass?

But mostly, we could ask this: Who the fuck criticizes the First Lady for attending the funeral of a teenager shot dead without any conceivable rhyme or reason.

Because, really. Fuck that.

(Oh, and by the way. That song isn’t really called “Star Star.”)