Baw-BAWK!

This took me a minute:

In a heated exchange with fellow Republicans on the immigration bill, John McCain apparently dropped the F-bomb and used "a curse word associated with chickens," according to Paul Kane of the Washington Post.

Naturally, I started trying to decode the fowl language. My first thought was, er... "chicken lover," as they put it on South Park. But that seemed over the top, even for McCain. Hell, it's over the top even for the Vice President "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney--and he shot a man in the face. Because he thought he was a bird.

Then I wondered: Do chickens curse? If so, how can we tell? We'll have to wash their beaks out with soap, but considering the fate that lies a little down the road for them, that's hardly a deterrent. "Soap me all you want, beeyotch! I'm already on death row! Baw-BAWK!"

Then I realized: McCain called something or someone chickenshit. As a noun or an adjective, chickenshit does fine work in the derision business.

Sometimes I wish newspapers weren't so chickenshit about quoting people verbatim. But if they were, I wouldn't get to play this little game now and then.

Rob
(Via TPM)