Dowd: If the word ‘congenital’ fits for Trump, hit him with it

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 11, 2024

By Maureen Dowd / The New York Times

In his Friday back-against-the-wall interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, President Joe Biden said of Donald Trump, “The man is a congenital liar.”

That rang some bells with longtime New York Times readers.

In 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for reelection, William Safire wrote a blistering Times column about Hillary Clinton called “Blizzard of Lies.” Citing Whitewater, Travelgate, exponential commodity trading profits and behavior in the wake of her friend Vince Foster’s death, he wrote, “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady — a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation — is a congenital liar. Drip by drip, like Whitewater torture, the case is being made that she is compelled to mislead, and to ensnare her subordinates and friends in a web of deceit.”

Then the kerfuffle began. Bill Clinton said he wanted to punch Safire in the face. His spokesperson, Mike McCurry, told reporters, “The president, if he were not the president, would have delivered a more forceful response to that on the bridge of Mr. Safire’s nose.”

Safire was presented with a pair of red boxing gloves on “Meet the Press.”

The famous Times wordsmith, who had a column called “On Language” in addition to his conservative political column, was accused by some of choosing the wrong word. Congenital is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “existing or dating from one’s birth,” as in a “congenital disease or defect.” It was harsh.

As author and journalist Garry Wills wrote in The Washington Post, “It seems a gratuitous, if not cruel, description of a woman who is not accused, or suspected, of such innate deceptiveness during the first 45 years of her life.”

My pal Safire took all the criticism with his usual equanimity. But one day during this donnybrook, I wandered into his office down the hall from mine in the Washington bureau. I wanted to see what he thought. He wasn’t there, but in plain view, he had left a list of synonyms for “congenital,” starting with “chronic.” So he may have had his doubts about the word he chose as well.

But in the latest instance, Biden probably chose the right word. Trump not only gives the impression that he has been lying since the cradle but seems proud of it. So “congenital” works pretty well.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.