Rep. Jenkins' Caput in Recto Moment

Every once in a while, each of us manages to get our foot in our mouth. That’s exactly what happened to Kansas Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins when she said that Republicans need a “great white hope”.

I’ve always been a lot like that. My biggest problem has always been that I have a remarkable ability to get my foot in my mouth with my head already up my rear end. But that’s not the case with Jenkins.

Let’s be charitable. She’s a freshman in Congress—but she is also a professional politician having held statewide office in Kansas. It seems like her greatest claim to fame until now is her resemblance to Katie Couric.

She was trying to communicate a concept about leadership. And she used a phrase which yourdictionary.com defines as “something or someone that is expected to succeed”. Hmmmm, that’s a polite phrase isn’t it.

The phrase of course goes back nearly 100 years to when Jack Johnson became the first black man to hold the title of world heavyweight boxing champion. The great white hope was a man named Jim Jeffries who was supposed to be able to pound Johnson into the canvas and restore the championship to a white boxer. Johnson prevailed knocking Jeffries down again and again until Jeffries’ corner threw in the towel ending the bout.

I’m sure that Rep. Jenkins would have liked to become invisible just about 1 second after those words left her mouth. I’m sure she would like to have been like a frog zapping a bug and been able to suck those words right back into her mouth.

(And I hate to broach this very indelicate subject but is she implying that maybe Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal should give up any Presidential aspirations?)

So, on today the 27th of August, 2009, I am conferring unto Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R, Kansas the “Caput in Recto” award a photo of which follows. And we can all show the difference between those of us with a liberal persuasion and those with a conservative persuasion and neither gloat nor rub this relatively minor faux pas in.