Sticks and Stones

In an editorial a couple of weeks ago The New York Times, while deploring the current idiocy extant in the New York State Senate, called Pedro Espada, Jr. a “slippery mediocrity.” The juxtaposition of those two words has stuck in my brain ever since. Somehow they are not only exceptionally descriptive but deliver a punch that something like “stupid asshole” never could. I don’t know if these words together were coined for Mr. Espada (it seems like George W. might have been appropriately smacked in the jowls with them first) but it’s poor Pedro who took the blow this time. Pow! Right in the kisser; and from the prestigious NY Times (debatably the most influential newspaper in the world) to boot!

Just prior to this my favorite descriptive words were “wise, Latina woman,” spoken publicly (eight years ago) by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and for the last month continually quoted by unwise, white, middle-to-elderly Republican men, it had a certain ring to it I liked. I recently applied it to a hunky, Ecuadorian male of my acquaintance but nobody understood the reference so what the hell good is it? But I digress and continue to dwell on “slippery mediocrity.”

How would you like to have that on your resume? Mr. Espada (representing a district in the Bronx) is now the New York State Senate Majority Leader, which he obtained by a coup of timing and basic political chicanery while flip-flopping between Democratic and Republican majorities; siding with one and then the other and then back to the first. It was so mind boggling that one can’t help but think this may be typical of the general caliber of the Senate as a whole.

I’ve been called some interesting things in my time, mostly in the guise of taking me down a peg or two but my battered ego always survived and I’m a better man for it. Water off a duck’s back, as the saying goes. But this! This “slippery mediocrity” has glue in it and isn’t going anywhere soon.

Hopefully Mr. Espada will take the high road (yeah, right) and not run for reelection next year but if he does his opponents will certainly have a quotable quote for Espada-bashing. Maybe a wise Latina woman can do the job.
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Update June 21, 2009: The latest journalistic flapdoodle to catch my eye was on the sports page wherein Tom Watson, the 59-year-old golfer, was called "destiny's wrinkled darling" as it became a possibility that he might win the British Open in Turnberry, Scotland. Maybe it's better than being a slippery mediocrity but not by much.