Capitol Hill is no stranger to curse words, with former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson’s profanity-laced “persuasion” sessions having long occupied a prominent place in congressional lore. But LBJ, who revered the traditions of the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” would be embarrassed by Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat, who delighted this week in using the six-letter adjective for excrement during official Senate proceedings. Levin pointedly repeated the word 13 times during this week’s Senate inquisition of a half dozen Goldman Sachs executives. Levin drew inspiration from the fact the word had been used in an internal e-mail from a division head to subordinate Daniel Sparks concerning a mortgage package sold by the Wall Street firm before the economic meltdown of 2008.
But Levin, who is chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on governmental investigations, wasn’t just quoting somebody else, he used the word over and over, like the 4-year-old who keeps repeating something naughty until an adult corrects him. Clearly, Levin wasn’t listening as a child when his mother explained that profanity is most often heard from people who lack either the intellectual capacity or energy to choose more suitable language. Perhaps he would listen now to a well-deserved censure by his Senate colleagues.
