The Presidency

By Hugh Sidey

There is down deep near every President's gizzard an errant SOB that on some dark day rises and bursts from the fellow's lips, scattering either delight or dismay across the land, depending on the state of each listener's soul.

It happened to Ronald Reagan the other day right in the Cabinet Room and on a live microphone. He wanted to talk about reorganizing the Pentagon's procurement system. Reporters kept yelling questions about the Philippines. As the session was breaking up he turned to David Packard, his Pentagon commission chairman, and muttered it: "Sons of bitches."

The journalists quivered in ecstasy. Prying SOBs out of the mighty is their new art form, and one that can pay palpable rewards. To be authenticated as an SOB by the President is equal to an Emmy or two in today's White House journalism.

For this discussion, the periods after the letters SOB have been dropped. It's time. The phenomenon is now in political encyclopedias, and some shorthand is needed. However, Lexicographer William Safire uses periods and even spells out the full words when he explains various forms and subtleties in his book The New Language of Politics. He notes that SOB is "an appellation which creates a furor whenever the public learns that a President of the United States has used it."

Handling an SOB once it has escaped can be quite a fascinating exercise. President Truman let one loose after Columnist Drew Pearson blasted Aide Harry Vaughan; Pearson promptly promoted a new fraternity, "Sons of Brotherhood." Kennedy, SOBing during the 1962 steel crisis, blamed his father for having told him that big steelmen fit the description. Canada's Prime Minister John Diefenbaker stirred some trouble after an Ottawa meeting when his staff claimed that notes Kennedy left behind revealed that the President had SOBed Diefenbaker in the margin. Kennedy claimed he couldn't have done that because he did not know until that very moment that Diefenbaker was the real article.

The public record does not show Ike's having SOBed anyone, but he did. Asked to sign a special bill granting $125,000 to a bombsight inventor who had been denied any wartime compensation owing to national security strictures, Ike exploded, recalling his overworked, ill-paid years under the lash of "Black Jack" Pershing and General Douglas MacArthur. As Ike signed the bill, he SOBed the whole idea with an original but unprintable twist or two. His loyal aides never leaked it until now.

As might have been expected, Reagan knew just what to do once his SOB got loose. Indeed, there are those suspicious souls who think he may have promoted the escape just to establish a little macho for the coming budget battles. Only a couple of hours went by before White House Spokesman Larry Speakes was explaining that the President had no recollection of letting out an SOB. He had just turned to Packard and remarked, "It's sunny and you're rich."

There is a touch of disingenuous genius in that answer. All those reporters who proudly consider themselves, to use the words of the late Indiana Senator William Jenner, "self-appointed, self-made, cross t'd, dotted i'd, double- documented, super-superlative, revolving" SOBs could only laugh. Some of them showed up in their subterranean White House offices with SOB T shirts ("Sons of the Basement"). But Wednesday morning, about 50 of the best SOBs crowded into the White House's State Dining Room for a scheduled breakfast with Reagan. No smiles, no T shirts, only tape recorders and ballpoints.

Reagan brought a T shirt, a yellow number that he unfurled over his chest. Big black letters read SOB. There was only a halfhearted gurgle from the avenging crowd. Then Reagan flipped the shirt--"Save Our Budget." He had not only SOBed them, he had defeated them. Those SOBs applauded, which is almost enough to get you thrown out of the brotherhood.