Alas, no such doubt surrounds the Prime Minister's mental state -- at least, not any more. Until now, Jean Chretien's frequent collisions with lucidity, in whatever official language he happened to be speaking at the time, were the stuff of common ridicule, a treasured national resource of the risible and the inane. Schoolchildren learnt them by heart:
"I had to go, so if you are in my way, I am walking."Editorial cartoonists, stand-up comics, overworked newspaper columnists: not just careers, whole industries depended on making fun of Chretien's speech patterns. His incomprehensibility became a political issue in itself: outside Quebec, listeners found the mangled syntax and fractured phrases endearing, thinking it was because English was his second language; inside his native province, the same linguistic indignities raised feelings of shame and indignation: at best he was a disgrace to the language of Molière, at worst he was playing the Uncle Tom to win votes with les Anglais."Why buy automatic rifles, nuclear arms, to have fun with?"
"Work is created by the creation of jobs."
But now we discover, courtesy this month's Saturday Night magazine, that the Prime Minister is not merely thick-tongued, but may actually suffer from a hereditary speech disorder known as dysphasia, or an inability to speak clearly -- not to be confused with dyslexia (an inability to read words and letters in their correct order), aphasia (an inability to remember words or sentence structure), or dyspepsia (an inability to digest one's food). What once was dismissed as mere sloppiness is accorded the title of "disability," and suddenly the laughter dies in our mouths.
Does it? Should it? What has changed? It isn't as if the Prime Minister's disability, if such it be, has held him back in life, any more than the Bell's palsy that disfigured his face: another popular subject of cartoon ridicule, though no political opponent would ever be stupid enough to try to take partisan advant -- er, no, strike that last bit. Nor is the affliction so serious as to be actually pitiable. Is it, then, that this is something he "can't help," and therefore shouldn't be held to account for? But what has changed even there? Before, his verbal clangers were taken as evidence of a lazy or untidy mind, whch is surely just as genetic as dysphasia. It just wasn't identified as a disability.
This isn't the first time we have had to confront this issue in public life, and it won't be the last. Ronald Reagan's genial absent-mindedness was a staple of the late-night talk shows -- until it emerged he had Alzheimer's. George Bush was similarly famous for the disorder of his speech; was he, too, actually suffering from a speech disorder? Or take the Kennedy family. Most of us have taken great delight over the years, even spiritual sustenance, in mocking Ted Kennedy for his boozy indiscretions. Now it seems it's in his genes. According to his nephew, Robert Kennedy, alcoholism runs in the family. "I feel in many ways that I was born an alcoholic," he told a television interviewer. "It wasn't something I became." And as for infidelity, come on: hasn't anyone been reading the newsmagazines? It's genetic. Frank Gifford, Hugh Grant, Marv Albert: they're only suffering from a hereditary disability known as maleness.
Not that everyone is eager to wear the dysfunctional label. A previous issue of Saturday Night hypothesized that Lucien Bouchard's many backflips and betrayals of causes he once championed might arise from something called "aesthetic character disorder." The premier and his admirers seemed mortally wounded at the suggestion, or at least, a little more mortally wounded than they are on most days. But really, if they thought about it, the idea might grow on them. As a person without a disability, Bouchard is merely lacking in backbone or convictions, and therefore susceptible to the charge of opportunism. But if in fact he suffers from a disorder, syndrome or, heaven help us, a disease, no moral accounting is possible.
Perhaps every human frailty is a kind of disability. But if so, then let's take away the stigma. If it's okay to laugh at Preston Manning's voice -- a disabilty known as annoying, high-pitched whininess -- we surely cannot be faulted for cracking a smirk at Chretien's malapropisms. Sure, he can't help it. Neither can we.