Thoughts before and after-thoughts

I would never say that I really thought X was a perfectly horrible person.*

Of course, in 2014, the parlance in so many quarters seems to be that that person is a MF and that it's perfectly fine to say it.

Say it.  

Don't say it.

But we all know that the various formulations of mean the same thing.  

And most of us, I am assuming, think thoughts like that about certain people unless we're Johnny Appleseed.

(And Dick Cheney said it aloud, in public, which doesn't make it right.   And Bill Clinton, in private).

Whatever the case may be, I have to add that I have difficulty in believing that those who are not very nice people wind up being very good teachers--in the ethical, humanistic sense, that is.


* admittedly with a few exceptions