December 24, 2105--Schlonged

Donald TRUMP is right, Hillary Clinton in 2008 did get schlonged by Barack Obama.

When primary season commenced, she had a huge lead in the polls over not just Barack Obama but was besting all other contenders--among them, Joe Biden, John Edwards, and Chris Dodd.

Then out of seemingly nowhere, along came Barack Obama. He won the Iowa caucuses and over time beat her and won the nomination. The rest is history.

But now we're not talking about history but about TRUMP's use of a Yiddish epithet to characterize her defeat.

In my old Brooklyn neighborhood, on East 56th Street, where in many households Yiddish was either the first or second family language--a neighborhood geographically and culturally not too distant from the goyishe one where The Donald grew up--at the end of a punchball or stickball game, parents would ask how did it go? How did you do?

If we got killed, rather than putting it that way or more formally ("We lost by a large margin"), we would say, "We got schmaltzed" (idiomatically, chicken fat or as in schmaltz herring) or more commonly, when the defeat was most painful, we would mutter, "We got schlonged."

I would say this in front of my very proper mother. Not once did she correct or admonish me though she was not loath to do so when I committed other infractions of speech or etiquette.

So, perhaps naively, I grew up never knowing the first meaning of schlong. The noun schlong (penis) rather than its verb form--schlonged (to be overwhelmingly defeated.)

And, I suspect, neither did Donald TRUMP.

I get it--TRUMP should not have used schlonged even if he didn't realize is was one of dozens of Yiddish slang words for penis. (Just as there are dozens in English and pretty much every other language.) He should be more temperate, proper, presidential.

To underscore his offensive but potentially innocent use of schlonged, check out Tuesday's headline in the Huffington Post--"Donald Trump Goes Full Schmuck, Uses Yiddish Word for Penis to Mock Hillary Clinton."

Not apparently realizing that schmuck itself is another Jewish slang word for penis.

And then there was Dana Millbank's piece in Tuesday's Washington Post. When it first appeared in the earliest edition and on line the tittle was, "Oy Vey! Donald Trump is a Putz."

Later additions had it, "Oy Vey! Enough of Trump." Tacit acknowledgment that Millbank, though Jewish, didn't realize that putz is, yes, another way of referring to the penis.

TRUMP's stupid comment was quickly taken up by Hillary Clinton and her people as evidence that TRUMP is not fit to be president. As she put it, "He can't bully his way to the presidency." Sounding like poor Jeb! who, to show his alpha maleness, has been indignantly saying that TRUMP can't "insult his way to the presidency."

In regard to Hillary's bullying comment. at an event two days ago in Iowa, with her arms around a 16 year-old girl who, without emotion much less tears, asked what Clinton will do to stop bullying.

Clinton's response was that she too has been bullied and that we should take measures to overcome it. The feeling was more whiny than forceful. Not like a potential commander-in-chief who is able to shrug off these kinds of things.

TRUMP's stupidity was distracting enough--reporters stopped talking about her TRUMP and ISIS untruths and exaggerations during Saturday's Democratic debate--that she didn't need to cite sexism or embrace victimhood.

On the other hand, Jeb! did get one thing right--TRUMP is a "jerk."

That's a better way of dealing with this kind of adolescent behavior. If TRUMP wants to be president, he should know better. He doesn't any longer live on East 56th Street.