America has a long and honorable tradition of top elected officials using salty language. Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Bush and Clinton all used rough language. Jimmy Carter did, too. (Though his best moment may have come when he didn't mean to: Speaking in Poland, he said "I want to know the Polish people," which was translated into Polish as, "I want to have carnal knowledge of the Polish people.") It is true that our first president was against it: Gen. George Washington issued "General Orders on Profanity" to his troops in 1776.
Ronald Reagan appears to be the modern president who kept it cleanest. He didn't even write out swear words in his diary. ("I'll hail it as a great bipartisan solution," he wrote of his tax cutting plan. "H—l! It's more than I thought we could get.") But he did sometimes resort to them in private conversation.
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Saturday, March 27, 2010
Cartoon of the day: Joe Biden's colorful language :)
John Dickerson notes that this is, of course, not the first time:
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