Memento Mori and the Mississippi House of Representatives

I include Chris Cuomo in my news feed, even though he lost his job at CNN. He lost his job because while he and his brother shared a particular appreciation for the female form, they also shared a lack of respect for the rest of their personhood. Cuomo’s one failing as a reporter was trying to bury the story of his brother’s womanizing. I’m not sure what you were expecting; they’re both full-blooded Italians.

I use the word “womanizing” here specifically because men born in the twentieth century with political talents and aspirations seemed to be often guilty of sexual impropriety. It was, I think, a particularly male issue. I never heard anybody accusing Evelyn Gandy or Ann Richards of cattin’ around. Of all the many things people accused Hillary Clinton of, cheating on her husband was the least credible, which always amused me because could you really blame her?

Despite his troubles, I still find Cuomo’s perspective interesting and useful, especially on political issues. Last night, while I was eating Hibachi at Hal and Mal’s, the entire world was writing their comments on Joe Biden’s performance during the unprecedented press conference on the subject of his fitness for office.

I fully expected Cuomo to be in the “gotta-go-joe” camp, but he surprised me. He said, “Can you imagine how Donald Trump would respond to that many pointed questions from the press?” And, yes, I absolutely can imagine it. His little orange head would have exploded. Trump would have never earnestly invited anyone to question him about his fitness.

Now that Joe Biden has opened the door for this, I think every candidate for every office should have to endure a pretty gauntlet regarding their fitness for the job. Doing it shows humility, and in any political position, especially executive political positions, humility might be the most important quality.

Some say that Marcus Aurelius started the tradition of Memento Mori, but it may have been much older. The idea is that while an adoring Rome shouts his name and sings his praises, someone trusted stands behind the emperor, whispering, “Remember, Thou Art But A Man.” Although solidly of the stoic tradition, this idea became a significant part of Christian theology and philosophy.

When I was twenty, my father dropped a copy of the Mississippi Blue Book on my desk and told me to memorize the names, particularly the House and Senate and their committee assignments. Although it was never to be, he was grooming me to be the remote kingmaker he had been.

The way he did it required a level of dispassion that I could never emulate. I was much more suited to being a political activist. The process of learning these names, their hometowns, and their committee assignments taught me something very important. It taught me what sort of person I liked in politics, and what I liked were people who got the job done and didn’t let their position go to their head. Even the king of Mississippi still lives in Mississippi, so humility is a quality that serves a man his entire life.

My wife was angry when I said George W. Bush was more humble than Al Gore or John Kerry, and that’s why I supported him. I stand by that statement. What ruined Bush’s presidency was Dick Cheney. I guess the moral here is, don’t invite Darth Vader to your staff, even if he’s your dad's friend.

The friendship between the Bushes and the Obamas always made me smile. It seems to be entirely genuine. Legend has it that the wives started it. Even if it’s not true, I’m willing to go with that story. There comes a time in life when the only guy who has a chance of understanding you is the guy who replaced you. Bill Clinton keeps trying to horn his way into that party, but what keeps him out is his utter lack of humility. He also doesn’t look good in a tan suit, which is a requirement.

When I was young, my father suggested I register as a Republican. He had grown up in a one-party state, but things were changing, and registering in the Republican Party might give me a useful perspective. It meant I couldn’t be part of the Democratic convention or participate in democratic party events, which I wasn’t planning on doing anyway. Daddy’s idea was that I should maintain a pretty clear line between myself and the guys actually working in government.

Some of Daddy’s peers considered themselves responsible for bringing white republicanism into Mississippi to replace the older black-and-tan Republicans. They even wrote books about it. When word got out, I registered as a Republican. One of them saw me at the Country Club and clasped my shoulder, saying, “Hurr, hurr, hurr, welcome to the party, son!” I wanted to spit. Impressing people at the Country Club wasn’t what I signed up for.

Ray Mabus changed the law restricting the governor of Mississippi to just one term. I was a big fan—and still am. I considered his re-election unassailable. I was wrong.

Some of my friends who did join the Republican Party to impress people at the Country Club tried to impress me with the virtues of this guy from Vicksburg. I made my opinion pretty plain. “Look, guys, I’d go anywhere Ray Mabus wanted me to, but if Kirk Fordice showed up at a party, I’d leave.”

My first ten encounters with Fordice hadn’t gone well. I knew and liked his family and his children, but the man himself impressed me as a drunken, angry bigot who thought way too much of himself. I had no issues with Eddie Briggs, who was our first Republican Lt. Governor since reconstruction, but the idea that Fordice actually won the election made my stomach hurt.

Most people thought I was suffering from sour grapes and had an unreasonable attitude about Fordice until stories came out that he bought a house in Madison for his girlfriend and left the first lady, who everybody loved, in the Governor’s Mansion alone.

Pat Fordice had always been a very active First Lady. Even with her husband cattin’ around Memphis and Madison, she continued with her duties as she saw them. She hosted a fund-raiser for the Art Museum or the Ballet or something similar at the Governor’s Mansion without the Governor.

I wrote her a note. Never mentioning her husband or her marital status, I told her how much I appreciated her dedication to her position, the way she volunteered her time to the people of Mississippi, and how lovely she kept the Governor’s Mansion on and on.

She never wrote back. She probably had no idea who I was, and the first lady gets a sack of mail every day. Still, I was on team Pat, and I wanted to be on record as such. My point about her husband became part of the national news when Kirk Fordice said he would kick Bert Case’s ass. He never did. I would have been interested to see what happened if he tried. Case was a pretty formidable man.

His replacement was a Democrat. Since I was one of the few people in Mississippi who knew how to apply makeup to a man, I was hired to help him prepare for a series of televised debates. Having him to myself for thirty minutes before each debate, I bent his ear about the history of moderate Democrats in Mississippi, how I was on his side, but that his competitor, Mike Parker, was a pretty good guy, a lot of people liked him, and that might be a problem.

Musgrove, too, was caught cheating on his wife while governor. I joked with my friends that this really didn’t need to become a tradition in Mississippi.

The fact of the matter is that for guys born during the 20th century, having lots of girlfriends and cheating on your wife was considered something of a birthright.

As a young man growing up in Jackson, if I went to dinner in Natchez, Memphis, or Biloxi, it was entirely normal to see Billy’s dad at a table across the room with somebody other than Billy’s mom.

Some guys just decided never to get married. Powerful men in Mississippi didn’t have to be attractive to be surrounded by women, but if they were, then katy-bar-the-door! Brum Day and Sonny Montgomery both decided that marriage wasn’t necessary for the lives they wanted to lead. Brum never thought he’d meet a girl who meant more to him than the others, but then he met Barbara Reed—So much for that plan.

A bachelor well into his fifties, sixties, and seventies, people used to opine that Sonny Montgomery must be gay. It’s possible. Lots of guys in Washington, then and now, were gay. I’m gonna get in trouble for saying this, but there’s something about that lifestyle that attracts gay men. It probably has done so since the beginning of time.

My opinion on the matter was that, as long as there were stories that Sonny Montgomery and I were seeing the same girl at the same time, I wasn’t inclined to believe he was gay.

The event of me finding out that I was seeing the same girl that my dad’s peers were also pursuing happened with uncomfortable regularity. Generally speaking, I considered that a firewall event. Once I found out somebody was sharing time with one of my dad’s friends, I lost their number—with one notable exception. In that case, I should have stuck with the firewall because she chose him over me.

Whatever stories there were about Night Train Charlie Deaton, I never wanted to know the details or their veracity. What I knew for a fact was that when he was home, he was a dutiful and faithful husband and father. That being said, Deaton was the best-looking man I ever saw whose name wasn’t Jack Sewell or David Coffee. Whatever happened while he was in Jackson, serving the people of Mississippi was his business. I never once found out that Deaton and I were dating the same girl, although with his looks and charm, despite being thirty years older than me, he could have stolen any girl I ever smiled at.

The story goes that Deaton rented an apartment in the same building as my cousin Ann Ball Wingate when she was twenty. Lots of guys in Congress had apartments in Jackson, and sometimes, they shared one. If they didn’t have the money for that, then they hung out at the Sun and Sand, which wasn’t much different from living at the KA house when you’re 40.

Ann Ball and Deaton agreed that whatever happened in Jackson stayed in Jackson, and nobody would tell stories to her mom and dad—and they never did.

Despite whatever he achieved regarding wealth, power, sexual prowess, or good looks, Deaton was a very humble man. He preferred fishing or hunting ducks to chasing girls or tugging on the reins of power in Mississippi. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s the kind of man he was.

Men are men, and sometimes, men are boys, but what separates a great man from others is his capacity for humility and a recognition that, no matter what they achieve, they’re no better than anyone else, and if that means letting the press beat you up about whether you’re too old to be president, then so be it. The people have a right to know, and the willingness to take that kind of question is the first affirmative answer.

Ultimately, we are weak. We are slaves to our baser nature and the guy that recognizes that in himself is the one who wins the game in the long run.

Kirk Fordice Threatens