October 14, 2016
Red Snapper
Source: Bigstock
NEW YORK”Editors all over America are dealing with the thorniest ethical question of the Presidential campaign:
“What is our policy on pussy?”
Forty years ago, when newsrooms were still smoke-filled dens of vice and carnal excess, the answer would have been shouted from the deep recesses of the Sports Department, always the most depraved of the various journalistic divisions:
“We”re for it!”
Unfortunately, the movie All the President’s Men altered the nature of newsrooms forever, and so its denizens became lookalike sports-jacketed loose-tied drones toiling away in an antiseptic space pod. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman may have had an informant named after Deep Throat, but it was an ironic reference. The two intrepid heroes of the Washington Post“where this latest scandal originates”set about saving the Republic without ever having to deal with pussy-grabbing.
But, alas, American politics has evolved from “What did he know and when did he know it?” to “Who did he grab and how did he grab her?”
“Frank, I just don”t think we can use the word pussy. We”ll go with p dash dash dash dash.”
“Well, it’s not like he said the c-word, or the t-word.”
“What’s the t-word?”
“You”re not from the South, are you?”
“We just can”t be talking about pussy in the news columns.”
“We”re not talking about it, he’s talking about it, and if you go with p dash dash dash dash, it could be anything. It could be prick, for God’s sake.”
“He’s obviously talking about women, no one is gonna think it’s prick. Okay, maybe p dash dash dash y. That makes it obvious that he said pussy.”
“Isn”t the daily newspaper supposed to be written in such a way that an eighth grader can understand it?”
“That’s what they say.”
“All right, I have an eighth grade son, I”m texting him now.”
One minute later:
“What did he say?”
“He posted on Snapchat that his dad is a pervert, asking him about pussy.”
“Okay, well, that proves that it’s a distasteful term, even to eighth graders.”
“No, that just proves all eighth graders use it. He just did a Facebook collage featuring the word pussy in a hundred different fonts.”
“Look, it’s not the word that’s important here. It’s the fact that the man was advocating a systematic assault on women.”
“Well, we don”t know that, because we don”t know exactly what he meant by grab.”
“He was grabbing vaginas and bragging about it! And actually that’s probably the word we should use. Just put vagina or female genitalia in brackets. Avoid the whole pussy thing.”
“Latin is a dead language, Stewart. Why do you guys always wanna go to Latin words, like they”re more acceptable than good old Anglo-Saxon?”
“Pussy is not Anglo-Saxon. Pussy is just pussy.”
“That reminds me, we should call Honor Blackman for a quote.”
“Call who?”
“Honor Blackman! Pussy Galore in Goldfinger! Obviously nobody had a problem with pussy in 1964.”
“I”m holding the line on pussy. We”re not putting locker room terms in the newspaper.”
“That’s my point. It’s not a locker room term. A locker room term would be Tuna Town.”
“What?”
“You know, the bearded clam, the love canal, the clown pocket, the coochie, the honey pot, the muff, the taco, the tamale”have you ever wondered why so many terms for the female anatomy involve Mexican food?”
“Are you done?”
“Maybe we should just use a different synonym every time we have to use pussy in a quote. We could go 19th century on this bad boy: Trump made a vulgar reference to her Portal of Earthly Delights.”
“Okay, I”m finished talking about this. We”re going with p dash dash dash y.”
“We have another problem. How do you grab a pussy?”
“What difference does that make?”
