I’ve been reading the John F. Kennedy/Ted Sorensen book Profiles in Courage. It’s a good read so far, though a little slow. Anyway though, what I wanted to mention here was that Kennedy/Sorensen quotes Congressman John Steven McGroarty as writing to a constituent in 1934:

“One of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains reforested and I have been in Congress two months and haven’t done it. Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell.”

Forgive me a bit of nostalgia–if you can be nostalgic for a time when you weren’t even alive–but it seems even insults were better in the old days.