Cojones: Spain’s Great Contribution to the American Political Idiom

Perhaps Sebastian de Covarrubias, the 16th century lexicographer and author of “The Treasury of the Castilian or Spanish Language” would be turning over in his grave if he learned that Spain’s greatest contribution to 21st century U.S. political discourse is the word “cojones.” And, possibly, Nobel laureate Camilo José Cela would consider it a vindication of his literary legacy.

But that’s the way it is. It began back in 1961, when John F. Kennedy said of the Department of State, “I just see an awful lot of fellows … who don’t seem to have cojones. The Defense Department looks as if that’s all they’ve got. They haven’t any brains.” It is a general description of the political and military classes, respectively. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright* continued the tradition in 1996, saying, “Frankly, this is not cojones; this is cowardice,” when the Castro regime shot down two small planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue, an anti-communist group. The quote was described by Albright’s boss, Bill Clinton, as “probably the most effective one liner in the whole administration’s foreign policy.”

More recently, in 2004, the venerable British weekly, The Economist, described George W. Bush as having “no cojones.” And now, with respect to statements by Rick Santorum about the use of Spanish in Puerto Rico, humorist Steven Colbert said, “It takes serious cojones to go to Puerto Rico and tell them to stop saying cojones.”

“Cojones” also seems to be making an impact on U.S. political thought at more elevated levels. Colum Lynch, The Washington Post’s correspondent for the U.N., posed the question this week in his regular post for the online edition of Foreign Policy magazine: “Has Susan Rice found her cojones moment?” Susan Rice is, by the way, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

*Editor’s note: Madeleine Albright was a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations when she made this comment, not the secretary of state.