Frank Barone Cleans Up Congress

Things were quiet at Jenny's Coffee Clutch yesterday.
Too quiet.

So, it was time to stir things up. Frank McQuestion ( pronounced " mac-Ah-shin", emphasis on the upper-case syllable ) made a crack about John Murtha having seriously considered taking a bribe during the ABSCAM affair.
Now I do not have a penny invested in Mr. Murtha. I have been for much of my life a John Conyers man - meaning Mr. Conyers represented the district in which I lived. My daughter interned for Mr. Conyers one summer. Look cross-wise at Mr. Conyers and you will have a fight.
However, as I mentioned, things were too slow. Idle hands and minds may indeed be the devil's workshop, but even Old Nick himself had been laid off and was sleeping in the corner, dead to the world. So, to take up the slack, I rose to the bait. I said that I had seen the film of Mr. Murtha and I did not consider his response an indication that he was or would seriously consider taking a bribe. I said that it sounded to me as if Mr. Murtha were flabbergasted and did not know for the life of him what to say.

McQuestion disagreed and his lips moved, but I was preparing my riposte and heard nothing.
I said Mr. Murtha was obviously shocked. I said that it was as if a beautiful 20-something young lady had come up to Frank McQuestion and said how admirably masculine a figure he cut! Now every spirit at the table rose! We were about to do some serious joke making. Everyone had an opinion at last. So I said that Frank would probably stutter and mutter, then say something about the weather, then say good-bye (not "thank you" for he could not acknowledge the immensity of what he'd just heard) and trip over the curb.

He came back with a brilliant assumption that I could do better in a pig's eye. His face began to erubesce. Then I said "What would you have done? Drawn your enormous dignity about yourself, stand up on your high horse of Justice, put on your baseball cap of Rectitude, and denounce the briber?"
"Yes." he said. "I would so have done!"

Notice that we had reached a point where Master Rhetoric began to take over from Dame Conversation. We spoke in lofty terms and measured periods worthy of Milton and Cicero.
"No," I said. "You would have acted like a young lady in Donegal Town accosted by a drunken sailor. You would have closed tight your legs like a thunderclap, you would have drawn your skirts tight about ye..."

Language was becoming omnitemporal; the usual limits were disappearing.
"...and ye would ha' been off! Run off like a scared coney (rabbit), you big Nancy!"
And so on. You will notice that at this point I assumed a persona much like Frank Barone. This is my homage to Peter Boyle, whom I first saw in the theaters in "Joe", and that was almost 40 years ago. I know that Mr. Boyle passed on a month or so ago. I know I appear tardy in my homage.
However, I told you that news travels slowly around here; the speed of light itself is 55 mph.

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