A Gaffe In Every Pocket

It's like if Harry Truman had chosen to put aside the life of a rustic, colorful-spoken hermit in the epitome of "the boonies," paid a visit to the Cougar Men's Warehouse, got himself elected to the U.S. Senate, but didn't leave the colorful-spoken part in his rustic outfit:

He actually said "illegal alien".  TWICE.  Before the C-SPAN cameras.  Not "undocumented worker," not "illegal immigrant"; illegal alien.  What's the matter with you, Harry?  Don't you know that's raaaaaacist?

He would learn.  Over the years, Harry lost his rough edges of authenticity.  The old rusticness faded, along with the hick accent, to be replaced by refinement and arrogance inculcated by the elite circles in which he circulated.  The only thing that didn't disappear was the cantankerousness, which mutated into meanness, viciousness, and contempt for the "little people" that he used to call his own:

To say that Harry would have "lost touch" doesn't begin to describe this plummetous sociopathic descent.  "Transmutated to a different species" is a lot closer to the pin.

Now imagine of one of Harry's ex-wives had, um, caught wind of his insinuation that voters literally stink and decided to send him back to the shadow of pristine, conical Mt. St. Helens, and he re-discovered why she had taken him to the cleaners the first time, no matter how perjoratatively he verbally shat upon her: she was nice, and she was real.  Like Harry used to be.

Instead, Harry Truman never left his rustic Spirit Lake lodge and was obliterated by megatons of incendiary volcanic ash, and that political cautionary tale of the Searchlight Icarus was left to Harry Reid, instead.

Lucky old bastard.