When it comes to profanity, reading The New York Times can be a little like reading one of Hillary Clinton’s redacted emails. Here’s the Times’s description of a wiretapped conversation that was played at the corruption trial of Dean Skelos, the former majority leader of the state Senate in New York, in which Skelos and his son discuss their opinions of Governor Andrew Cuomo (emphasis added).
Their disappointment quickly turns to anger at Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat.
The son used an anatomical term to refer to Mr. Cuomo, and asked, “How do we beat him, Dad?”
“We will,” the senator replied. “I’m going to run against him.”
“I wish you would, Dad,” the son said, his mood seeming to lift, adding with coarse language that he “would be so proud” if the senator soundly defeated Mr. Cuomo.
“You watch what I’m going to do in the next couple of years with him, especially starting this year,” the senator said. “No more, you know, buddy-buddy and all that stuff,” he continued, and then referred to the governor with an expletive.
We’re pretty sure the son, apparently a fan of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, is the type who would be so f’n proud of his dad. The expletive could be anything. And what could the anatomical term be? We’re going to go with “ass” for now.