Barney Frank and the Indelicate Art of Sarcasm

Barney Frank and the Indelicate Art of Sarcasm

“Sarcasm: 1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain; 2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual” (Merriam-Webster.com)

A low form of wit, sarcasm becomes, in one-on-one discussions, an angry last resort used by those devoid of substantive argument to strike out against an opponent in lieu of the ability to refute contentions of the opposition.

Most of us have used sarcasm at one time or another in adulthood. However, it’s a rhetorical device more associated with childhood repartee when a conflict erupts involving such matters as sandlot baseball disputes or girl tweens arguing over whose bff is a skank or who wears last year’s jeans.

Retorts and invective such as, Your mother wears army boots or, You suck like a Hoover, were common back in the ol’ days. I frankly don’t know what’s in vogue in the tween sarcasm department nowadays.

However, as one SCOTUS justice once said about pornography, I know it when I see it and I know it when I see Rep. Barney Frank, (D. MA), employing it often as a defense mechanism reflective of his, umm, sexual proclivities.

(For more than anyone really needs to know about Barney, please see “Here’s Barney,” http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=872.)

Barney, and, again, not the kid favorite purple Barney but that proud queer congressman whose constituency incorporates rampant- lesbian Wellesley College and Dartmouth, got his gay dander up when hit recently with pertinent town hall questions.

Absent his purse as a weapon, Barney’s only recourse was sarcasm to cover his butt.

He was incensed, incensed I tell you, . . .

(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com)