"He may be a _____, but he's our _____"

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:04 PM -0400 8/3/07, Bonnie Taylor-Blake wrote:
>List members have previously touched on one of my favorite political
>observations, which Fred includes in his _Yale Book of Quotations_.  There,
>the attribution is to FDR [p. 647]:
>
>[Of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza:]  He may be a son of a bitch, but
>he's *our* son of a bitch.  [Quoted in *Washington Quarterly*, Summer 1982]
>

This line appears in a linguistics paper
published in 1991 that analyzed the "may-but
concessive" and related constructions, but is
given in a slightly different form that may
represent either an expurgated or just a variant
version:

"...in F.D.R.'s classic endorsement of the
U.S.-sponsored Nicaraguan despot Anastasia Somoza
García (1896-1956): 'He may be an S.O.B., but
he's *our* S.O.B.'"
[L. Horn, "Given as New", Journal of Pragmatics
15 (1991), p. 330; no actual citation given]

Great work tracking down the antedatings and antecedents!

LH



>In case we're looking for early sightings of that attribution, it's worth
>noting that *Time Magazine* printed the following in its 15 November 1948
>issue:
>
>In 1939 [Somoza] got himself elected for eight more years.  And he went to
>Washington.  To prime President Roosevelt for the visit, Sumner Welles sent
>him a long solemn memorandum about Somoza and Nicaragua.  According to a
>story told around Washington, Roosevelt read the memo right through,
>wisecracked:  "As a Nicaraguan might say, he's a sonofabitch but he's ours."
>[From "I'm the Champ,"
>http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,853420,00.html.]

>--------
>
>I think it's also worth noting, though, that the basic "punchline" had been
>floating around Washington since well before 1939.  For example, the
>anecdote was tied to FDR, in a fashion, in J.C. Franklin's _The New
>Dealers_, published by Simon & Schuster in 1934.  An excerpt appeared in
>*The Washington Post* early that year:
>
>After the Chicago Convention, Gen. Hugh Johnson, who had worked hard with
>Barney Baruch to stop Roosevelt, was asked what he thought of his
>nomination.  Johnson replied by recalling a story of a county convention of
>Democrats in which the wrong man had been chosen.  Driving home from the
>meeting, two politicians were comparing notes.  Both had opposed the
>successful candidate.  One said to the other, "Damn it all!  We should never
>have let them put Blank over.  He's a So and So!"  The other man sighed and
>said nothing for a long time.  Then he cheered up.  "After all," he
>observed.  "Blank isn't so bad.  He's our So and So."  [12 February 1934,
>Pg. 1; ProQuest Historical.]
>
>--------
>
>In fact, a similar version, featuring the appointment of an unnamed "party
>man," had appeared in *The Post* just a few months prior to Time's 1948
>publication of its FDR/Somoza anecdote.  A short piece written on the death
>of Senator James Watson [Indiana], the "last Republican majority leader in
>the Senate before the Roosevelt era," includes this telling:
>
>Senator Watson used to tell a story of Uncle Joe which shall be our
>contribution to the stock of reminiscences about Jim Watson.  One day in the
>House the Speaker spoke about a party man as a deserving appointee for some
>vacant post.  "But you couldn't recommend him," said young Watson.  "He's a
>so-and-so."  "Yes, he may be," said Uncle Joe, "but, my boy, he's *our*
>so-and so, isn't he?"  [From "James E. Watson," The Washington Post, 3
>August 1948, Pg. 10; ProQuest Historical.]
>
>--------
>
>Which looks to be related to an anecdote told 80 years earlier:
>
>The Cincinnati *Enquirer* has the following sharp cut on radical presses and
>orators:  "A politician, on a certain occasion, accosted a member of his
>party, who had some conscience and sense of propriety, to persuade him to
>vote for a candidate whose character was none of the best.  'Why, he is a
>great rascal!' was the indignant response.  'Ah! But he is our rascal,' was
>the rejoinder. [...]"  [From "The Difference," *Newark [OH] Advocate*, 11
>September 1868; 19th-Century Newspapers database.]
>
>--------
>
>As others (elsewhere) have pointed out [1], "he's a so-and-so, but he's our
>so-and-so" bears some resemblance to a popular anecdote said to have
>involved U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (Pennsylvania; 1792-1868) and cited well
>into the 20th century:
>
>Speaking of the probable contests for seats in the next Congress, the Boston
>Herald says:  "The republicans are not over-scrupulous, when in power, as to
>the management of contested cases.  In fact, their morality was well
>illustrated by the characteristic remark of Thad. Stevens, when it was said
>that both claimants of a disputed seat were 'd-----d rascals,' 'I don't
>doubt it,' said the grim old 'whip,' 'but what I want to know is, which is
>our d-----d rascal?'  [From "Current Political Gossip," *The Galveston Daily
>News*, 26 November 1880; 19th-Century Newspapers database.]
>
>"He's a damned rascal," said Thad. Stevens bluntly on a similar occasion,
>"but as he's *our* damned rascal we must put him in."
>[From "Credit Where It Belongs," *The Washington Post*, 22 July 1882, Pg. 2;
>ProQuest Historical.]
>
>--------
>
>My guess is that an anecdote involving "[he may be a _____,] but he's our
>_____" (and similar) was already pretty familiar to office-holders,
>political pundits, and Washington wags by the time FDR started his first
>term.  That it had been brought out again in 1934 and applied to FDR's
>nomination in 1932 (consequently making FDR "our son of a bitch") must have
>gotten some additional notice in Washington and at the White House.
>
>I think it's a little hard to know whether FDR -- perhaps remembering his
>prior association with the anecdote -- ever really used the line (in jest)
>in the late '30s or whether someone else just recycled the anecdote,
>attributing the line to the President in reference to some Latin American
>dictator, but my hunch is that the latter is more likely.
>
>-- Bonnie
>
>[1] See, for example, this 1998 post to alt.quotations,
>
>http://preview.tinyurl.com/34lnvk
>
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