Appalling backdrop

On Wednesday, June 21, the president delivered a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Immediately behind his left shoulder, a lovely young woman in a red ball cap vigorously chomped her “wadda gum,” showing her beautiful dentition with each chomp, and sometimes even her uvulo-palatal tissue as she shifted her cud toward one cheek or the other. She looked like a beached trout, gasping for air.

I may be old-fashioned, or I may have brought my table manners from another country of residence, but…Don’t American parents teach their young to chew with their mouths shut? The beautiful young lady exhibited the dining delicacy of a hyena cracking a femur.

Maybe it would be a good idea for the president’s staff to brief the “political wallpaper” crowd behind the lectern to avoid chewing gum, smoking, picking their noses, or scratching their private parts, y’know?

J-P. A. Maldonado

Chandler