Did the mayor channel her inner Jeff Spicoli? |
Ahem. Let's consider the evidence.
The claim surfaces in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by former Chicago Park District deputy general counsel George Smyrniotis. Which in itself means nothing. Anyone can sue anybody claiming anything. Though the charges are plausible enough that the Sun-Times reported them, in dashed form.
The natural assumption is that, were the allegations purely fictional, their creators wouldn't have conjured them up then placed on a conference call involving numerous real people who could either confirm or deny the claims.
Until those people are able to do that, we are left to conjecture; belief that Lightfoot actually said this certainly does not require a radical shift in the perception of the mayor as a thin-skinned, foul-mouthed bully who frequently browbeats opponents and underlings. That's Lightfoot's brand.
Funny that the paper would dash "dick," one of those sometimes risque, sometimes not words, like "cock," which EGD explored in 2015, neither among the seven dirty words that can't be said on television. More of what I consider "The N-Word Effect," trying to pretty up reality for the 1 percent who claim not to be able to stand it. Before long our news stories will be a Mad Libs maze of dashes and redactions: "——!" said [a political figure]. "Why don't you —- —— your—-?"
"Dick" is not a common slur, but one of those words hardly heard outside of teen movie comedies. I'm wondering if it's a cultural thing. Lightfoot was born in 1962, two years after me, and grew up in Massillon, Ohio, 50 miles southeast of where I grew up in Berea. So we can be considered roughly equals, in our linguistic milieu. "Dick," as an insult, strikes me as having a certain juvenile, 1970s quality, certainly less current than "asshole" which in my mind came to replace it among adults. Her "You dicks!" ejaculation is a near quote from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," 40 years earlier, and it is odd to see the mayor of Chicago channeling Jeff Spicoli.
It's also interesting that Lightfoot would use it in both its metaphorical ("You dicks") and literal ("I've got the biggest....") senses in the same rant. I can't recall ever using it in its literal sense, but this is an area given to euphemism.
So how long has, umm, dick been around? Long a generic term for a man ("Every Tom, Dick and Harry...") it's tough to tell how long it has been used to describe jerks and anatomy. My trusty Wentworth and Flexner Dictionary of American Slang drops the ball, dick-wise, focusing on the word as a synonym for detective, with citations, and only at the end of the entry flopping out "4 [taboo] The penis. Colloq."
Patridge's 1961 "A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English" traces the penis definition of "dick" to 1860s military slang (thanks to Tony Galati) |
What it doesn't have is Lightfoot's first meaning, as a synonym for "idiot." Here Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang traces it only to 1966, to Norman Bogner’s novel, Seventh Avenue: “He’s a dick. I don’t know from respect, except for my parents.”
The mayor issued one of her trademark non-denial denials.
“I am deeply offended by the ridiculous and outrageous allegations in that lawsuit," she told WBBM, going on to call the lawsuit "without merit" which is not quite the same as "I didn't say those words."
Though even if she did say it, baldly denying things that make her look bad and are later found to be nevertheless true is another one of her go-to moves. To me, the more damaging statement was "Where did you go to law school?" which is almost as bad as "Don't you know who I am?" (Lightfoot graduated from University of Chicago Law School, whose prestige is in inverse proportion to the number of graduates you know personally).
Though even if she did say it, baldly denying things that make her look bad and are later found to be nevertheless true is another one of her go-to moves. To me, the more damaging statement was "Where did you go to law school?" which is almost as bad as "Don't you know who I am?" (Lightfoot graduated from University of Chicago Law School, whose prestige is in inverse proportion to the number of graduates you know personally).
She doesn't have much reputation left to lose at this point, though it'll be interesting to see how much this sticks with Lightfoot. Sexual metaphors applied to oneself tend to echo for a long time — I would imagine that those who know anything about disgraced former Cook County Commissioner William Beavers know he once described himself as the "hog with the big nuts." Hard to get that one out of your head.
This episode had one unexpected effect: it might have pushed me beyond the typical head-scratching puzzlement and bedrock scorn that most observers have increasingly felt for Lightfoot over the past year into a kind of pity. She's so bad at this. It makes a kind heart want to start rooting for her, a little bit. Almost.