Good evening everyone:

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I was captivated by the power of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s riposte to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s stalking/verbal assault in the hallways of Congress last week: “I used to work as a bartender, and these are the kind of people I threw out of bars all the time.” Indeed.

AOC’s spiky, incisive retort made me think that we could go to school on not just her skills, but on others from history who have demonstrated the power of a well-crafted verbal counterpunch to those who would bully, intimidate, or otherwise behave badly.

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Winston Churchill was unquestionably among the most deft and facile in the art of turning tables. One of his steepest critics, Lady Nancy Astor, once took the floor in Parliament to characterize Churchill as a “disgusting drunk” who had probably drunk enough liquor in the last year to fill the House of Parliament within three feet of its ceiling. Churchill rose, looked at the imaginary line between his supposed consumption and the ceiling, and shook his head, lamenting, “So little time and so far yet to go.” He then turned to Lady Astor and said, “And by the way my dear, you are ugly, so please remember that by tomorrow, I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.” An unfortunate dose of misogyny, but nevertheless effective.

The feud between the two seems a worthy precursor to the AOC-MTG dust-up. In another exchange, Lady Astor commented that if she had been married to Churchill, she would have poisoned his coffee – to which Churchill replied, “Nancy, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

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Evidently, this isn’t just a 20^th or 21^st century phenomenon. After receiving a scathing review of one of his symphonies from a contemporary composer of operas, Ludwig Beethoven replied: “I liked your opera. I think I will set it to music.”

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Where was Mark Twain when we most needed him over the last months during the insane maneuvers trying to keep the “big lie” iterations alive? He seems to have caught the spirit of the current moment when he quipped: “One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothing can beat teamwork.” Or, we could pull out his observations about the Congress of the late 19^th century: “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

We’ve grown accustomed to looking to Abraham Lincoln for inspiring affirmation of democratic ideals, but we might want to tap him as well as we are forced to listen to nonsense coming out of folks who speak to fill the time allotted during our 24-hour news cycle: “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I have ever met.”

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So, as uncomfortable and depressing as it may be to read about Marjorie Taylor Green’s stalking of AOC, perhaps some legacy exchanges will emerge. I’m buoyed by the example of Groucho Marx, who once told a dislikable colleague: “I never forget a face, but in your case, I’ll be glad to make an exception.”

Rip

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