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According to U.S. News & World Report‘s “Washington Whispers,” Vice President Cheney isn’t the only White House occupant with a penchant for the f-bomb. President Bush, in fact, employs the word in a startling variety of grammatical forms: “He uses the ‘F’ word as an adjective, a verb, and a noun,” according to an adviser, who says the expletive isn’t employed in anger. “It’s more conversational … like how guys talk.”
Well, maybe not all guys: Time‘s long and mind-numbingly boring portrait of John Kerry in his youth paints him as a polite boy scout more likely to talk international policy than invoke words not used in polite company. Kerry did learn to swear in Italian, however. (One favored phrase: “Spaccare la faccia, porco!” which roughly translates as “Shove it in your face, pig.”)
The New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer, meanwhile, reveals that Dick Cheney’s personal physician, Dr. Gary Malakoff, who gave a clean bill of health to the veep when he was tapped to be Bush’s running mate, has a history of abusing prescription drugs that dates back to 1997. In addition, writes Mayer, “Pharmacy and other records show that, on several occasions, [Malakoff] prescribed Stadol and other drugs for himself by falsely using the name and the Drug Enforcement Agency license number of a colleague under his supervision.” The doctor is now on leave from his position at George Washington University Medical Center.
Finally, Newsweek is all about anecdotes: wives are sleeping around, “homo-hop” is having its moment, and — in a story we’re sure we’ve seen every four years as long as we can remember — the kids are gettin’ political. While Kerry has the backing of a number of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and Jon Bon Jovi, Newsweek wants us to know that “Bush supporters also have their celebrity boosters, like the Christian band Third Day.”
In other news from the magazine: Michigan State senior Traci Carpenter (and representative of “the youth vote”) is not ignorant. That’s good news, because those courting her sure seem to be. Here’s the last sentence of the Republican National Convention’s update on their “Stand Up And Holla!” essay contest — see if you can spot the four typos: “The stakes are high and the response has been overwhelming! More then 500 essays from 18-24 years olds flooded the convention offices in just two months time — and now the field will been narrowed down to just ten finalists.”
We wish the ten finalists luck — and hope that they, at least, won’t been making anymoe then three typos per sentence. [sic]
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.