I must be hearing this wrong, but it’s the L&O episode where the priest killed a drug dealer, and it sounds like Jack used the term “screw the pooch”- twice! Did Jack really say that? MY Jack?
Why are you so surprised? It doesn’t sound out of character for him, nor particularly surprising on network television.
He said it (I think) during cross-examination. To a priest. He’s usually a tad more eloquent.
Yep, he said it. I was as shocked when I first saw it as you are.
Equating man-on-dog with what priests do! Send him to the pillory like Sen. Santorum!
I think it’s very telling; isn’t he a former semi-hippie type, or at least one of those 60’s legal liberals? I mean, he rides a motorcycle. I think it makes sense for him to occasionally use such “colloquial” phrases.
–greenphan
I thought “screw the pooch” was a military colloquialism, kind of like “cluster fuck”?
The first I ever heard of the phrase was in the movie"THE RIGHT STUFF. It was in reference to Gus Grissom and the sinking of his spacecraft. It was meant to mean “screw up bad”.
So it does seem to be a military phrase. I would like to know it’s origin though.
I always thought it was something along the lines of “messed up so badly I missed the wife and…” You get the idea.
I heard him say it on L&O and never even noticed until you mentioned it.
Last, in the book The Right Stuff isn’t the Gus Grissom chapter called, or doesn’t it mention “the unscrewable pooch?” Been a while since I read it.
Saw that episode last night. Thought it was kinda weak, overall. Did like the quote, however.
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
The first time this episode aired, a lengthy thread on screw the pooch appeared, although I don’t believe a causal relationship was ever established.