Power Mouth

I first became aware of it when I was a kid, looking at a picture of Benito Mussolini.

It's that mouth, the upside-down smile.  Over the years, I've grown accustomed to seeing it on the faces of people who wield a lot of power, and it seems to me we should pay more attention to it.

By the time we're forty, Abraham Lincoln said, we have the face we deserve.

If this is so--and I see little to contradict it--why do we flock to the ballot boxes year after year in order to hand the reins to people who are so clearly permanent two-year-olds?

I think it may be for one of two reasons.

First, we're simply unwilling to believe that anyone can be as awful as that mouth suggests; okay, maybe Hitler and Mussolini had it, but in other people, it's just an accident of physiognomy.

Second -- and this is worse -- we've gotten used to it.

There was a lot of this in the second Bush administration.  And okay, we didn't elect Donald Rumsfeld-- we can thank George W. Bush for his presence in our lives.  But we did elect Bush who, when he wasn't trying to act like a slightly dim good ol' boy, had a pretty good power mouth of his own.

And let's not forget the most terrifying power mouth of the 21st century, someone else for whom we actually voted.  Actually, this is a unique power mouth sub-genre, the power mouth that suggests a childhood dominated by sadistic dentistry.

Surely, we can learn from our mistakes.  Surely, we won't put another power mouth in charge of what we sometimes humorously call the free world.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Careful, Barry.


Tim -- Sundays