HON’ Y SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
(…forcing sequestration of our common everyday vocabulary)
Present Obama’s recent offhand comment about a fellow female politico being “good looking” apparently set off an uproar of indignation from a horde of folks bent at finding offense about…anything.
Their outcry is another example of – political correctness – on steroids which, if allowed to continue running rampant, will be forcing the sequestration of our common everyday vocabulary, to avoid the remotest possibility of giving offense to someone’s manufactured
“sensibilities”. It’s truly a ridiculous situation when a patently innocuous remark, intended as a complimentary one, is twisted to be something belittling, if not gauche.
It reminds me of a similar episode a few centuries ago when an English king, during some sort of Court party function, observed that a young woman of that Court had a wardrobe malfunction…the garter holding up one of her stockings, not only slipped, but fell off of her leg completely, leaving her publicly embarrassed. A true gallant, the king calmly strode over to her, knelt down, picked up the wayward garter, and courteously replaced it upon her shapely limb (enjoying the process as well, no doubt).
The king’s action caused an immediate buzz of scandal among the rest of the lords and ladies of the Court. Reacting to their murmurs of disapproval, the king turned a stern glare towards them saying: HON’ Y SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE…shame on he who thinks evil of it. To make and even stronger point of it, he then and there created the –Order Of The Garter – becoming one of the highest British honors, its insignia being a royal blue garter on which that motto was embroidered in gold thread, which the honorees had to prominently display on their leg at (or near) their knee, a custom continuing to this very day. Talk about savoir faire!
Alas, such a display of couth by an American President, today, would find him severely censured and accused of – sexual harassment – just as President Obama has been for his remark in a much more trivial context.
What’s most ridiculous however is the spectacle of the President making a contrite mea culpa, as if he were just another chicken-hearted PR-fixated politico panhandling for votes, and without the cojones to respond to all that hooha, with a firm put down instead, telling them all: ”I make no apology for my remark. As Marcus Aurelius put it so well…if it is good to say or do something; then it is better to be criticized for having said or done it. So, as your President, I’m with him!” It certainly would be much more presidential and seemly to that office.
CENTURION