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Adam Clymer Blows His Moment

Timothy NoahPosted Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2000, at 3:16 PM ET

There are few things more gratifying to a reporter than to have a politician call you an "asshole," particularly if the epithet comes unattached to any coherent explanation of what you did to deserve it. Sputtering, inchoate rage--yes, that's the kind of response that a journalist likes to elicit from the powerful people he writes about. So Chatterbox figured Adam Clymer would be walking on air after an open mike caught George W. Bush's comment to Dick Cheney at a Labor Day appearance in Naperville, Ill.: "There's Adam Clymer--major-league asshole from the New York Times." ("Oh yeah," Cheney replied sycophantically. "He is, big time." Click here for the expurgated video.)

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But according to the Associated Press, Clymer is not walking on air. Clymer told the AP, "I'm disappointed in the governor's language."

Chatterbox is disappointed in Clymer's language, which is as pompous and insincere as anything he can ever recall hearing from a politician. It just isn't possible that Clymer is "disappointed in" Dubya's outburst. "Thrilled by" seems much more likely. In addition to enhancing Clymer's luster at the New York Times, it will surely help Clymer sell copies of his Edward Kennedy biography, due out this month in paperback. "Angered by" is also, Chatterbox supposes, a possibility--there are bound to be some people who just don't like being called names, no matter how good it makes them look. "Indifferent to" would represent the journalistic ideal, only occasionally lived up to--Clymer would be a genuine hero to the profession if he truly didn't care what Bush said about him. Though it's hard to say you're indifferent to something and sound like you really mean it. True indifference would be failing to comment at all on Dubya's outburst--a course the Times probably wishes Clymer had taken, since it didn't quote Clymer in its own account of the incident. (Unlike those in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, and Los Angeles Times, the Times report refrained from printing the word, "asshole"; instead, it said Bush "used an obscenity." Which raises the question: How newsworthy can Bush's use of this "obscenity" be if the word can be published in other family newspapers?)

Clymer's "I'm disappointed" line, in fact, disproves Dubya's remark. In Chatterbox's book, anyone who'd launch such a schoolmarmish riposte is at best a minor-league asshole.

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

COMMENTS

Reader Comments from The Fray:

Has Chatterbox considered the possibility that Clymer's "disappointed" remark was actually a snide and playful response to Bush's nastiness? Those of us who did not hear the words spoken are no position to judge for certain, but I have my suspicions.

--Josh Pollack

(To reply, click here.)

I think Clymer's riposte was well found. The word "disappointed" has an implication that if Bush were going to badmouth Clymer, he might at least have done so in a more colorful and less stuck-up fashion. Many of America's great politicians have also been spectacular dis artists, first-rate blue-streak cussers of the grand old school, like MLK. Lee Atwater and James Carville were certainly capable of rattling off zingers, and one suspects WJC must put his undisputed eloquence to such use now and again. In contrast, Bush's use of the word "asshole" comes off as clumsy, fake, and hopelessly square, a country-clubber's wannabe attempt to sound "regular", or "cool", or "bad", or something--you feel like Bush himself doesn't quite know what he's trying to sound like. "Disappointed" is thus quite apt here, almost Shakespearean, one might say.

--Matt Steinglass

(To reply, click here.)

When I was a reporter for the Tampa Tribune, my competitor at the morning Tampa Times was reemed out by a city councilman, called an a---hole and worse in front of the whole room. I gleefully reported this back to my city editor when I returned to the office. He looked at me woefully and said, "Why weren't they calling you the asshole?" I slinked back to my desk.

--Kim Eisler

(To reply, click here.)

Surely by saying he's "disappointed" Clymer is just being ironic and mocking the governor; if he were to respond with anything else (from "Yeah, whatever" to some kind of "yo' momma" comment) it would look like the remark had gotten to him. As it is he gets to smirk at Dubya and keep his hands clean. I think it's brilliant. After all, anyone who is hated by George Junior can't be too bad.

--Hennypenny

(To reply, click here.)

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