A brief history of name calling
It happens every time I irritate someone. They start calling me names. Here’s a brief history, in reverse chronological order.
Joey Langston must be irritated with me, because he just called me a “Republican political operative” on his website. I never have known what an operative really does, but it must be bad things. And if an operative does bad things, then a Republican political operative must be really, really bad.
Joey Langston’s New York City (that’s right — New York City!) lawyer complained about me last week to a court in New York, fretting that I am an “ultraconservative political commentator”. I don’t know the difference between being a conservative and an ultraconservative, but I guess he thinks I’m a really bad conservative, since he complained about me to a court. I promise to try to be a better conservative.
But look, those two shots across the bow from Mr. Langston and company are really pretty amateurish entries in the history of people calling me names.
None other than columnist Bill Minor himself once wrote that I was an “erstwhile choir boy”. I had to look up “erstwhile”. I don’t think you’ve really been called a bad name until someone calls you something you have to look up. On the other hand, it’s been my general rule of thumb for more than 25 years that if Bill Minor is irritated at me, I must be on the right track.
But easily the worst name I was ever called was courtesy of former Governor Ray Mabus. Mabus called me “a mediocre Jackson lawyer.”
Now that really hurt my feelings. I’m not from Jackson. I’m from Moss Point.
Andy Taggart
Red/Blue
9/28/7
Magnolia Tribune
