Classic peacock pickup line: Here’s looking at you, kid
One of nature’s most colorful courtship displays is the male peafowl, or peacock, fanning his feathers. The energy expenditure involved in growing and carrying all that weight around means that, if you’re a peahen, he really, really wants to fuck you.
We see the same basic phenomenon taking place in the current GOP presidential primary. Instead of iridescent feathers with spooky eyes, former front runner Willard “Mitt” Romney is busy trying to attract the party’s rabid Teabagger base with an ever-changing display of policy positions.
Willard, the flip flopping peacock
The list of Willard’s flip flops is impressive. From abortion to a flat tax; from climate change to supporting payroll tax exemptions after dissing them as just so many “temporary little band-aids”; from praising the individual health insurance mandate embodied in O’Romney Care to condemning it outright, it can be difficult to keep track of them all. (See e.g. Mitt Romney Flip Flops.com, a bare bones site that requires you to check in weekly, if not daily, for updates.)
But it’s the end game that intrigues us. Long time Republican and Former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, puts it succinctly:
“Even Romney is in many ways unelectable. He’s been a hardliner during the primary on key issues – and then he’s going to do this dance where he suddenly shifts to the middle and is a centrist in the general election? He can do that – but Obama will trounce him.”
Maybe for its next Thanksgiving dinner, the White House can serve up a freshly slaughtered Willard Peacock, Sauce Poivrade as its main course. Here’s an oldie but goody recipe from gourmet.com.
ROAST YOUNG PEACOCK
THE WAY WE COOKED: VINTAGE GOURMETDECEMBER 1951
Q. Have you a recipe for preparing peacock?
Mr. Wayne W. Jarvis
Santa Cruz, CaliforniaA. Peacock can be cooked very like turkey, except that it tends to be dry-fleshed and requires frequent basting with butter. Don’t know where you got your peacock, but every time we see one of those fine-feathered fellows strutting the local zoo, we can’t help thinking how handsome he would look on a silver serving platter!
ROAST YOUNG PEACOCK
Slinge, draw, and stuff a peacock with forcemeat. Truss it for roasting and roast it in a moderate oven (350° F.) for about 20 minutes per pound, or until well browned and tender, basting very frequently with melted butter. Serve hot with pan gravy or cold with chopped jelly and cold sauce poivrade….
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*Title “Flip Flopping Away” sung to Paul Simon’s Slip Siding Away:
Slip sliding away, slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination,
the more you slip sliding away
