Reprobates & Rapscallions

[shereads]

"To lose this election, I'd have to be caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

~ the late Huey Long, multiple-term governor of Louisiana, to a reporter covering one of his many investigations for bribery, corruption and racketeering.

What separates lovable rapscallions from regular criminals? Humor? Presentation? Whole-hearted acknowledgement of how guilty they are and how little they care?

If Augusto Pinochet were as well known for his quick wit as for disappearing his political enemies, would there still be an effort to bring him to trial? Or would he be guest-hosting Saturday Night Live during a lull in paid speaking engagements?

Personally, I'd have 90% less loathing for George W. Bush if he'd acknowledge his criminal culpability in Iraq and the outing of agent Plame, make a joke about it, and dare his own party to try an impeachment. It would be less terrifying than his cluelessness, and it might be good for some laughs.

Is there a rapscallion you admire who might as easily be considered a repellent criminal, like Huey Long? Francisco Franco? Bill Clinton? Prince Harry? Michael Jackson? What tips the scale?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Is there a rapscallion you admire who might as easily be considered a repellent criminal, like Huey Long? Francisco Franco? Michael Jackson? What tips the scale?

I really get a kick out of Ahmad Chelabi. He's a real live wire, what they used to call "a caution". I wouldn't be surpised to hear that he once put a whoopee cushion on George Tenant's seat. You just can't tell when he's around: hellzapoppin'!

On the other hand there are guys who want to look like rascals who you just know are real pains in the ass to be around. Bruce Willis comes to mind.

---dr.M.

Edited to add: Your comment on GWB reminds me of Mailer's comments on hipness. To be hip you have to be in on the game, to know what's going on behind the scenes. Kennedy was hip, Nixon wasn't. Dean was hip, Kerry no.

GWB is anti-hip. He believes in the game.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I adore Wilde. It's impossible to resent him. And of course, the alleged "crimes" for which he was prosecuted are largely actions we no longer decry. But when one looks at it cooly, he did coax young men into prostitution, run through staggering sums of money playing with Bosie (when he had a wife and two children to support), and leave his family penniless and so publically humiliated that they had to change their names.

I love the man. But he catered to his own whims - and his sons never saw their father again.

It's hard to weigh it.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

Re: Re: Reprobates & Rapscallions

On the other hand there are guys who want to look like rascals who you just know are real pains in the ass to be around. Bruce Willis comes to mind.

Yeah. He always strikes me as having the inherent humor and charm of a tax attorney.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Reprobates & Rapscallions

I really get a kick out of Ahmad Chelabi. He's a real live wire, what they used to call "a caution". I wouldn't be surpised to hear that he once put a whoopee cushion on George Tenant's seat. You just can't tell when he's around: hellzapoppin'!

On the other hand there are guys who want to look like rascals who you just know are real pains in the ass to be around. Bruce Willis comes to mind.

---dr.M.

I think you're mistaken about Chalabi. That story about the whoopee cushion has been making the rounds, but people who were there say it was Kissinger, not Chalabi, and J. Edgar Hoover, not George Tenant.

Bruce Willis and Rosanne Barr should spend some time together working out which one of them is a rascal and which one is a pain in the ass.

 

[Guest]

fave rapscallions

Errol Flynn, Peter O'Toole, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Richard Wagner, Catherine the Great, Keith Richard, SubJoe, Gauchecritic

Perdita

 

[shereads]

Re: Re: Reprobates & Rapscallions

Edited to add: Your comment on GWB reminds me of Mailer's comments on hipness. To be hip you have to be in on the game, to know what's going on behind the scenes. Kennedy was hip, Nixon wasn't. Dean was hip, Kerry no.

Ah. That means Cheney is hip.

Somehow I always picture Cheney sitting in a dark-paneled room at the Undisclosed Location, sipping a special "health shake" made with nonfat yogurt, bananas, and black-market stem cells, with a chaser of single-malt scotch. There's always someone else in the room, but his face is in shadow. The two of them spend Thursday evenings together, planning the fate of the world and making jokes about the Bush family. Cheney laughs a lot in these scenes, but it's a low, wheezy laugh and not very endearing.

I'll try to think of him as hip rather than just evil. Like Mini-Me.

 

[shereads]

Re: fave rapscallions

Errol Flynn, Peter O'Toole, Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Richard Wagner, Catherine the Great, Keith Richard, SubJoe, Gauchecritic

Perdita

Didn't Catherine the Great and SubJoe both order the executions of peasants as party entertainment? Of was that Keith Richard?

 

[Blackie Malone]

I loved Mickey Rooney and Jackie Cooper.........oh wait, they were adorable ragamuffins........sorry, wrong thread.

 

[shereads]

I loved Mickey Rooney and Jackie Cooper.........oh wait, they were adorable ragamuffins........sorry, wrong thread.

You're on the right track, though. Robert Blake was an adorable ragamuffin on "The Little Rascals," who became hip for a few years as TV detective "Baretta," and now he's an accused murderer. Plus, his victim was by all accounts one of the most repellant people ever, having told friends she wanted to get pregnant by somebody famous so she could blackmail him. In my book, that makes Robert Blake a rapscallion.

 

[Op_Cit]

I think it's all just personal preference, look at all the women that pursue, meet (via letters), and sometimes marry men on death row.

When the endless scandals of Bill Clinton were current, a host of people swarmed to defend him while their opposites sought to lynch him. Bill's defenders would squirm and thrash rather than look at or admit the deep corruption of his administration.

Several years later that very same host that defended Bill now swarm to lynch Bush, while the earlier mob after Bill, do that same dance to avoid seeing the deep corruption of this new administration.

The Bill Clinton/ Bush thing is an amazing phenomena, but ought to have been completely predictable, and I feel the fool for not forseeing it.

In fact the deep but almost in your face corruption of things like Haliburton can be seen as a direct effect of the Clinton years. The open acceptance and disregard of the most visible evils became an invitation to the Republicans: "Any thing goes guys, now it's your turn. Don't worry about getting caught because the people don't care about right or wrong, they care about us vs. them."

 

[shereads]

I think it's all just personal preference, look at all the women that pursue, meet (via letters), and sometimes marry men on death row.

When the endless scandals of Bill Clinton were current, a host of people swarmed to defend him while their opposites sought to lynch him. Bill's defenders would squirm and thrash rather than look at or admit the deep corruption of his administration.

Several years later that very same host that defended Bill now swarm to lynch Bush, while the earlier mob after Bill, do that same dance to avoid seeing the deep corruption of this new administration.

The Bill Clinton/ Bush thing is an amazing phenomena, but ought to have been completely predictable, and I feel the fool for not forseeing it.

In fact the deep but almost in your face corruption of things like Haliburton can be seen as a direct effect of the Clinton years. The open acceptance and disregard of the most visible evils became an invitation to the Republicans: "Any thing goes guys, now it's your turn. Don't worry about getting caught because the people don't care about right or wrong, they care about us vs. them."

Blow jobs aren't fatal.

Now to the real issue: Who is in charge of Dick Cheney?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I've always found G. Gordon Liddy to be a fascinating rascal.

 

[shereads]

I've always found G. Gordon Liddy to be a fascinating rascal.

Oh yeah. I know what you mean. He repelled me, but at the same time I couldn't look away. Like people who are fascinated by wrecks beside the highway, only in this case, the body being loaded into the ambulance winks at you and then makes an obscene fingure gesture.

 

[shereads]

Kissinger used to have to swat women away with a flyswatter. I don't see the appeal there, but that might just be because I know how involved he was with our assorted dictator/torturer friends in Latin America. If it was true that women were drawn to Kissinger's power, they should have been crawling all over his boss, and god knows Nixon wasn't gettng any. There has to be more to it than power.

 

[rgraham666]

I think it's the wit.

For example, Winston Churchill has always had a warm place in my heart.

"Sir Winston, you're drunk!"

"And you madam are ugly. But in the morning, I shall be sober."

 

[Op_Cit]

Blow jobs aren't fatal.

Now to the real issue: Who is in charge of Dick Cheney?

Tell that to Vince Foster.

Or perhaps the families of the those killed by the bombs dropped to divert attention from blow jobs.

Or perhaps that bunch of religious wackos in Waco...

Or... wait I forgot, never mind.

 

[shereads]

Tell that to Vince Foster.

Or perhaps the families of the those killed by the bombs dropped to divert attention from blow jobs.

Or perhaps that bunch of religious wackos in Waco...

Or... wait I forgot, never mind.

Oh Christ. Not the Vince Foster thing again. With $40 million and limitless power to investigate, even Ken Starr didn't try to turn that into a murder. Wackos abound.

 

[R. Richard]

Some years ago I worked at a company headed by a man who would have had to stretch for the title of mere reprobate or rapscallion. The 'mofo' used to take clients on party tours of places down in bum town that only a complete degenerate would even know existed. [I saw this with my own eyes.]

He also used to hire girls for the clients. [I did not see this with my own eyes, but Tiger Lady and several of her girls assured me that it was the case.]

Afer a night of drinking, carousing and whoring, the man would stagger into the plant and we would pry memos of understanding [usually written on the back of cocktail napkins] from his clammy hands and build the stuff the custoners wanted. Life was good.

The reprobate and rapscallion left to head up a bigger company. He was replaced by 'Squeaky Clean.' SC did not carouse, drink and whore with clients. He conducted an ethical, upstanding business. Well, at any rate, he conducted the business until he almost ran it into bankruptcy. Many people [myself included] including SC lost their jobs.

The company hired another reprobate and rapscallion and business picked back up.

 

[Blackie Malone]

Mao tse tung was a devlish rogue with his aversion to bathing yet his attracting women like those green flys go to poop. He was able to ruin his country and still get the chicks.

would Mrs. Mao be considered a Rapscallionette? she did have the Gang of Four and all?

 

[Boxlicker101]

I think it's all just personal preference, look at all the women that pursue, meet (via letters), and sometimes marry men on death row.

When the endless scandals of Bill Clinton were current, a host of people swarmed to defend him while their opposites sought to lynch him. Bill's defenders would squirm and thrash rather than look at or admit the deep corruption of his administration.

Several years later that very same host that defended Bill now swarm to lynch Bush, while the earlier mob after Bill, do that same dance to avoid seeing the deep corruption of this new administration.

The Bill Clinton/ Bush thing is an amazing phenomena, but ought to have been completely predictable, and I feel the fool for not forseeing it.

In fact the deep but almost in your face corruption of things like Haliburton can be seen as a direct effect of the Clinton years. The open acceptance and disregard of the most visible evils became an invitation to the Republicans: "Any thing goes guys, now it's your turn. Don't worry about getting caught because the people don't care about right or wrong, they care about us vs. them."

Actually, it goes back far beyond Clinton. Politics attracts crooks like shit attracts dung beetles. Successful politicians control a lot of money and they can use it to buy influence and whatever else. As far as I know, it has always been this way. Possibly the best known was Boss Tweed in the 19th century but there have been many others. I consider it to be a fact of life that politicians will be crooked and vote for the ones who are the most otherwise competent.

 

[shereads]

Some years ago I worked at a company headed by a man who would have had to stretch for the title of mere reprobate or rapscallion. The 'mofo' used to take clients on party tours of places down in bum town that only a complete degenerate would even know existed. [I saw this with my own eyes.]

He also used to hire girls for the clients. [I did not see this with my own eyes, but Tiger Lady and several of her girls assured me that it was the case.]

Afer a night of drinking, carousing and whoring, the man would stagger into the plant and we would pry memos of understanding [usually written on the back of cocktail napkins] from his clammy hands and build the stuff the custoners wanted. Life was good.

The reprobate and rapscallion left to head up a bigger company. He was replaced by 'Squeaky Clean.' SC did not carouse, drink and whore with clients. He conducted an ethical, upstanding business. Well, at any rate, he conducted the business until he almost ran it into bankruptcy. Many people [myself included] including SC lost their jobs.

The company hired another reprobate and rapscallion and business picked back up.

Maybe we forgive reprobates and rapscallions for their shortcomings (known as "antics") because they do us more good than harm.

Hialeah, Florida, is a city surrounded by Miami, whose population for years was almost entirely made up of first-generation exiles from Cuba and Latin America. When I moved to Miami, the mayor of Hialeah was locally famous for the number of times he came under investigation for bribery and corruption, and got away on a technicality. It only seemed to make him more popular.

Now, the unique thing about his corruption was that nobody tried very hard to deny it. Among his supporters, who were legion, there were more shrugs than angry denials. I came to think of him as a small-time version of Huey Long. Among the well-to-do and politically sophisticated, politicians like that are received with a wink and a handshake as "you sly ol' dog, you." Among the poor and naive, they are benefactors who can do no wrong. I suspect that openly corrupt politicians do well in places populated with lots of poor, undereducated and elderly, and that they become known for small acts of kindness that are highly visible.

The shady mayor of Hialeah wasn't known for any particular administrative skills, but he was known to accept phone calls from irate old ladies, and to cut through red tape to have the potholes filled in the sidewalks in front of their bungalows, where he was likely to be photographed in work gloves and holding a shovel, with a pile of Sakcrete in the background.

As crimes go, accepting bribes seems to be acceptible, and maybe even a sign of assertiveness. A second-generation Cuban friend told me that among his grandparents' generation, public servants were simply assumed to be making money on the side. Openly victimizing the poor wouldn't be tolerated, but to refuse a bribe from someone who could afford it meant you weren't very bright.

You scamp!

 

[Boxlicker101]

Richard Nixon was known far and wide as a crooked politician and by that, I mean he committed illegal or unethical acts in his quest for political power. His name is now almost a synonym for dishonesty.

JFK was probably even more crooked or at least he was supported by even more crooked politicians such as his father and Richard Daley of Chicago. He is honored, adored and revered. The difference is that the news media, who hated Nixon, reported everything they heard or could make up about him, while they ignored the crooked doings of Kennedy.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Richard Nixon was known far and wide as a crooked politician and by that, I mean he committed illegal or unethical acts in his quest for political power. His name is now almost a synonym for dishonesty.

JFK was probably even more crooked or at least he was supported by even more crooked politicians such as his father and Richard Daley of Chicago. He is honored, adored and revered. The difference is that the news media, who hated Nixon, reported everything they heard or could make up about him, while they ignored the crooked doings of Kennedy.

See, I don't mind venal politicians. I understand that a guy's going to do a little skimming.

It's the ones who are convinced that they're operating under divine mandate that scare the shit out of me.

Between Kennedy and Nixon you had the fiasco of Viet Nam, where it first became obvious that -- horror of horrors! -- our government was lying to us. Once that happened, the press stopped coddling up to the pols and started going after them. That's why Nixon got nailed and Kennedy didn't.

Besides, Kennedy had charm. Nixon wore wingtips and a suit at the beach.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

Kennedy was a real charming rapscallion, Nixon was just a sad crook.

Perdita