"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a [expletive]."

The Washington D.C. City Council should be rated R for language (and perhaps in the near future for violence). In a public meeting the other night, Councilperson Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) proposed a tax increase for the district’s wealthiest residents. Councilperson David A. Catania (I-At Large) described the proposal as hypocritical, pointing out that at least two council members had failed to pay their taxes on time. Mendelson said that he didn’t think it was appropriate to bring other members’ personal behavior into the debate, but Catania cut him off by reminding Mendelson that “I don’t give a shit what you think.” Chair Kwame R. Brown (D) tried to bring order, but member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), an opponent of the tax increase, pointed out that Mendelson’s objection to Catania was “bullshit.” For the next two hours, Brown attempted in vain to bring order to a council that Evans would afterward describe as “the worst council I’ve ever served on in my 20 years on the council.”

I can’t say I’m surprised at the use of this language in a D.C. council meeting. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often and in many other public meetings across the country. It pretty much sums up our current state of political dialogue in this country. What does surprise me is that the quotes above appeared as is in an article in The Washington Post the next day. Only a few years ago, Catania’s snipe would have been printed as “I don’t give a [expletive] what you think,” leaving it to the reader to figure out what might have been said. More naïve readers might assume a Rhett Butler interpretation: “I don’t give a damn what you think.” On the other end, some readers might assume a more Dick Cheney locution: “I don’t give a fuck what you think.” (Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to “Go fuck yourself” on the Senate floor a few years, an imperative that didn’t appear in print in most all national papers or on tape on any network or cable channel.) The problem with [expletives] is that they dilute or distort what was actually said, they blur the truth that journalism professes to report. It’s like describing a silver 2011 BMW as “I own a [year] [car] that is [color].” It might convey some vague sense, but there isn’t anything of substance, of matter. We deserve to know how our politicians (and other public figures) behave and speak in public. Euphemism has no place in journalism. And I’m pleased to see The Washington Post moving away from it.