bumpers-n. (American slang) brief oration noted for emotional appeal rather than reason. The senator did not have time for a long and thoughtful address, so he delivered a –.
The word from Washington is that Bumpers has become a common noun. It happened when another senator-Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.)-was asked why he had delivered a real tub-thumper during the last-minute whirl of orations that marked the latest budget deal. The senator responded by saying that, when you don`t have time to deliver a more thoughtful speech, you`ve got to do a
”Bumpers.”
It was a fitting tribute to Dale Bumpers (D), senior senator from Arkansas and better speaker than thinker. Let it be noted that this isn`t the first time a senator from Arkansas has become a common noun; a fulbright has been a fellowship for a while now.
The style that makes a bumpers was on display the other evening at Sheridan, Ark. (pop. 3,000 and some). The senator delivered one of his now well-known summations of domestic and foreign affairs in 20 minutes, including the latest jokes from inside the Beltway. It was a tour-of-the-horizon via rapidly spinning telescope. The talk went quickly but a few phrases linger, like the senator`s warning that the president is ”getting a premature itchy finger” in the Middle East. As opposed to a timely itchy finger?
If he were king, Dale Bumpers told the crowd at Sheridan, he`d be able to solve the country`s budget crisis in about three years. Who couldn`t? All you have to do is lop off your least favorite programs. Being king is no trick;
it`s being senator and having to reach agreement with 99 others and a president that`s the trick.
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Throw the rascals out? You bet, says Sen. Bumpers, if you just let him pick the rascals. ”You let me pick about 10 or 12 senators and about 30 House members, and I promise the problem could be solved, and you could make the decade of the `90s one of the most vibrant and regenerative periods in the history of this country.” This is the sort of phrasing that makes a great bumpers. (”One of the most vibrant and regenerative periods in the history of the country” should roll off the tongue like one word.)
Of course, the speech was short on specifics. Who are the 10 or so senators and 30 congressmen he`d throw out? Alas, Dale Bumpers didn`t say. The trick to delivering a bumpers is to leave an impression of candor.
As events move from confrontation to combat in the Middle East, don`t count on the senior senator from Arkansas. Dale Bumpers says he prefers to wait for the international embargo to work. His tribe increases with every sign of indecision on the part of the world`s leaders, but his rhetoric is more vivid than most. ”I`m willing to let this go on a while,” he told the folks at Sheridan, ”before we start seeing body bags coming back into this country.”
That kind of imagery is the essence of a bumpers. If only the term had existed in the 1940s, it could have described the speech in which a leading isolationist summed up Franklin Roosevelt`s foreign policy as the natural extension of his farm policy, the object being to plow under every fourth American boy. There`s the sort of rhetoric that makes a first-rate bumpers.
Let it be noted that among the programs King Dale would drop in order to balance the budget is the development of the B-2 Stealth bomber. To some of us, the gathering storm in the Middle East demonstrates the need for a manned bomber in the future-one that can penetrate enemy defenses, survive attacks by anti-aircraft missiles (the Iraqis are experimenting with the American-made Hawk missiles they seized in Kuwait), travel immense distances, attack mobile targets, respond quickly, carry a huge payload, discriminate clearly among targets and be instantly recallable. But engineering specs do not a bumpers make.
It`s easier to deliver a speech decrying ”$50 billion for a plane that has been flown 67 hours of the 3,000 hours it has to be flown before we know if it will perform or not.” It would be more accurate to say that, if the senator has his way and the Stealth bomber is abandoned, it will have cost $35.4 billion, including funds for research and development, for only 15 bombers. For another $27.4 billion over several years, another 60 planes could be built. The more Stealth bombers off the assembly line, naturally the less each one costs. At a total of $62.8 billion, a militarily significant Stealth fleet of 75 bombers would account for a smaller proportion of the defense budget than the B-52 and B-1 bombers did when they were built-doubtless to the accompaniment of similar complaints.
But how squeeze all these less-than-entertaining facts and figures into a bumpers?