TANT PIS

TANT PIS


The French came up with this wonderful expression.

Merriam Webster defines it as:

“so much the worse :  too bad”


I don’t know when or how the French use this word, but my guess is that it would in their situation relate to bad food or drink! They may have used it when the Germans came in to occupy France during the world war. I imagine they used it when they learned their president had a mistress and a spare a couple months ago.

I think it has perfect applicability to the situation in which we Americans find ourselves today. So I write to suggest that we take it up as sort of a rallying cry every time we are treated to yet another ridiculous government decision.

Not too long ago I wrote a piece on the word KERFUFFLE. Many readers enjoyed  that and emailed me. So today I decided to offer up another word to add to your vocabulary.

It is a nice, short response.

It is fun to say.

It catches a listener off guard.

Readers, we have a chance to start a groundswell movement in our reaction to what we have caused in today’s world.  Let us give it a try.

When you are out and about the next few weeks and someone relates to you yet another unfortunate world situation in which our country seems to have played her hand badly, respond “tant pis!” For instance...

We will not send boots on the ground to Iraq. We will send advisors. I saw a picture of three of the advisors we sent in a leading newspaper the other day. I expected Brooks Brothers suits, round intellectual-like  glasses, and wing tip shoes. These three were in camouflage outfits and carrying serious-looking weapons, wearing helmets, and carefully searching the street around them. And they certainly were wearing boots that were, in fact, touching the ground!

TANT PIS

We encouraged those Syrian rebels to overthrow their leader. We said if the leader didn’t step down, we had a “red line” in the sand, and he would be sorry. Well, the red line disappeared, the leader is still very much in power, and the other day the president committed millions to aid the rebels. Most pundits think it is too little, too late.

TANT PIS

I read a report in a newspaper recently demonstrating that most of the new jobs created over the last many years actually went to illegals.

TANT PIS

The President couldn’t get the advice and consent of the Congress, which is required by law, so he appointed the folks he wanted to government positions in what are called “recess” appointments. Now, recess appointments are permitted under some strict guidelines. Evidently the President constructed his own guidelines. The matter went to the Supreme Court, and the verdict announced this week was unanimous. The appointments violated the Constitution and were null and void. The president said he would continue to make recess appointments because Congress doesn’t play well with him.

TANT PIS

Well let’s cut the “Prez” some slack and move into some other areas deserving of tant pis responses. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a moment of unclear thinking made the statement that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left The White House. Technically, she may well have been right, but they did leave with multi-million dollar book writing contracts, and they both signed with speaking bureaus (the speaking fees alone of the former President exceed one hundred million dollars in a decade.) So it was difficult for normal Americans to find sympathy for Hill and Bill. She has spent the best part of the last week trying to back pedal on that statement.

TANT PIS

Evidently no one wants to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars to hear what George W. Bush might want to say so he has taken up painting. One of his first oils was of himself in the bathtub. I don’t think Sotheby's or the Louvre have shown much interest in his painting talent.

TANT PIS

Speaking of Bushes, the 90 year-old Parkinson's sufferer confined mostly to a wheel chair these days, George H.W. Bush, decided to celebrate by sky diving. He jumped out of a plane, opened his parachute, and landed safely. At his age, I don’t think he was looking for publicity; I think he actually likes that kind of stuff. He was well known both to the Secret Service and visiting heads of state to rev up his cigarette boat on the waters off Walker’s Point in Maine and slice through the ocean at breakneck speed. Yet somehow, his political opponents tagged him with the “wimp factor.”

TANT PIS

A Tea Party candidate down in Mississippi, attempting to unseat the incumbent Republican Senator in the Republican primary found that some of his supporters read up on Nixon’s reported “dirty tricks squad” and sent a guy with a camera into a nursing home to photograph the Senator's seriously ailing wife. That backfired, probably cost the Tea Party a win over the Senator, and led to the photographer taking his own life, probably as a result of the worldwide backlash that greeted such egregious behavior. Then the Tea Party candidate, in a show of zero class, refused to concede the election and promised to fight on, proving the people of Mississippi probably made the right decision in that primary.

TANT PIS

Valerie Jarrett, Special Assistant to the President and the Chicago woman who gave Michelle Obama her first job, is the real ghost of The White House. Although she is not in the cabinet, is not well known to the American people, rarely is covered by the press, she occupies the office in the West Wing previously occupied by Karl Rove. And she has a staff reputed to be around 27 people. She regularly is a guest in the family quarters, and she has survived four Chiefs of Staff during the Obama reign. Want to get the president’s attention? Best get Valerie on it.

TANT PIS

I have to stop writing now and head out to introduce this new word to my circle of friends.

TANT PIS