Mad About Political Rhetoric

In December 1970, as an 11-year-old sixth grader, I read a story in Mad magazine that had a permanent effect on me.

Titled "Mad's Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political Smear Speech," it's the one item I remember most of anything I ever read in Mad -- more than any cartoon or movie parody, more than the covers or fold-ins.

In it, a candidate gives a speech that says only true things about his opponent, but in such a way that it defames the opponent more than if he had lied. It does this mostly by using 50-cent words that remind the reader of more familiar, shocking words:

• "His parents not only permitted him to masticate excessively in their presence, but even urged him to do so"
• He "exacerbated his own sister when they were both teenagers"
• "His uncle was a flagrant heterosexual"
• "His sister, who has always been obsessed by sects, once worked as a proselyte outside a church"

The line I remembered most was: "His wife was a thespian before their marriage and even performed the act in front of paying customers."

Upon rereading it today, the lines that struck me as the funniest were:

• "His nephew subscribes to a phonographic magazine"
• "He attempted to interest a 13-year-old girl in philately"
• "Last summer he committed a piscatorial act on a boat that was flying the American flag"

Written by Bill Garvin, who (from what I can tell) never published anything else in Mad, the article inspired me in two ways:

• First, to expand my vocabulary. As I read it, I knew that I was being manipulated, but there were so many words I didn't know -- so I looked up a bunch of them. I never forgot what "thespian" meant after that! This led to a lifelong love of words, better scores on standardized tests, which led in turn to a brand-name scholarship, college, grad school, and much of my adult personality... so thanks, Bill!
  
• Second, to distrust politicians and political rhetoric. Despite living through 1968 and the rise of Nixon, I hadn't been paying much attention. I was pretty young, after all. But this soon changed as we headed into Watergate and the post-Nixon era.
  

This speech foreshadowed push polling, Barack Obama's non-Muslim religion, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, and other highlights of the modern political era. I wonder who Bill Garvin is, what made him write it, and whatever happened to him. (Maybe he got a job in politics, but somehow I doubt it.) Googling his name and "fan club" gives the dreaded "your search did not match any documents"... so maybe I should start one.

(By the way: You can easily find and revisit your own memories of Mad magazine via the Absolutely Mad DVD. Because I had remembered the word "thespian" from the original text, it took about 10 seconds to find this article. Like most DVD versions of printed media, it has its faults in terms of reproduction quality, but it's great for being able to just find the material!)