Gloves came off?

Reader question:

Please explain this headline: Gloves came off in Democratic debate (FoxNews.com, March 8, 2016).

My comments:

This means the debate among Democratic candidates are heating up. The fight for presidential nomination between Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (among others) is getting fierce and serious.

So fierce and serious that the candidates are perhaps beginning to call each other bad names and are prepared to do whatever else it takes to hurt and beat their rivals.

That’s what happens when they decide to take the gloves off.

The question is, what gloves?

The gloves, of course, are metaphorical and proverbial here.

Actually, I’ve written more than once about these gloves (as in, the glove are off) but it is an interesting enough expression to warrant another full explanation than for me to simply say: Read my column on such and such a date for an answer.

The gloves, you see, originally refer to the gloves boxers wear in a boxing match. If you watch boxing on TV, you’ll notice that fighters each wear a thick pair of leather gloves with which to hit the opponent. The gloves are big, thickly padded so as to prevent injury both to opponents and fighters themselves. Needless to say, gloves provide a cushion preventing boxers from hurting their own fists while they also help lessen the pain when opponents get hit. After all, boxing as a sport is an exercise for body building and entertainment, rather than seriously hurting someone.

So, what happens if a boxer decides to take their gloves off during a match?

No-one actually does this in a real match because it’s illegal, but for the sake of argument what happens when a boxer does take the gloves off?

The means, of course, that he is now ready to use his bare knuckles. And that has to mean he is angry and intends to harm his opponent.

Basically, that’s the idea.

So in our example, when the gloves are off, it means the debate and the fight for presidential nomination is to begin in serious earnest. Candidates no longer care to mince words, for example, and tempers are going to flare.

In other words, things can really get ugly.

All right. Let’s call it quits here. I want to call it quits because, you see, even though the “gloves” are something interesting to talk about, American politics is not. So let’s turn to media examples in order to get a better feel for the proverbial gloves outside the realm of boxing:

1. THE post-Watergate consensus which forced the CIA and the FBI to fight America’s dirty wars to the cleanest of standards is under attack as Washington begins its war against terror.

President Bush has now handed £650 million to the CIA and told the organisation it can kill Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

That decision had been foreshadowed in the president’s public statements and had been supported across the political spectrum. There have even been calls from within the FBI for agents to be allowed to torture suspects.

According to the Washington Post, an intelligence order signed by Mr Bush last month directed the CIA to undertake its most sweeping and lethal covert action since the agency was founded in 1947.

“The gloves are off,” a senior official told the paper. “The president has given the agency the green light to do whatever is necessary. Lethal operations that were unthinkable pre-September 11 are now under way.”

- Gloves are off as Bush scraps ban on assassination, Telegraph.co.uk, October 22, 2001.

2. Bernie Sanders finally got his political revolution.

It wasn’t an outright victory. But, for Sanders, who started this race as more stalking horse than viable candidate, fighting Hillary Clinton in a razor-thin contest in Iowa was more than enough.

“We had no money, we had no name recognition and we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America,” Sanders said Monday from Des Moines. “And tonight while the results are still not known it looks like we are in a virtual tie. And that is why what Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution.”

Without being a clear loss or win, it still gives Sanders momentum and the likely money boost that he will need for a long, drawn-out battle with Clinton that could stretch well into the spring.

...

Sanders insisted throughout the race that he would not “go negative.”

But once the polls tightened in Iowa, the gloves came off and Clinton and Sanders threw the best they had at each other.

Sanders followed his inspiring ad to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” with a final ad in Iowa blasting Clinton for her ties to Goldman Sachs.

And when Sanders dismissed Planned Parenthood’s support for Clinton as “establishment” politics, Clinton hammered back saying he was dismissing one of the most important groups supporting women.

- Bernie Sanders’ improbable revolution, CNN.com, February 2, 2016.

3. The gloves were off when Mavericks owner Mark Cuban went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to discuss Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night.

Cuban unleashed a whole segment of Trump disses. Among the highlights:

“The gloves are off. Speaking of gloves, I got you a pair for your birthday. You're a child’s medium, right?”

“I’ve got a travel tip for you. When you’re going through customs and they ask if you’ve got anything to declare, try not to blurt out ‘bankruptcy.’”

“You’re shiny and orange and empty inside. I’d say you’re a traffic cone, but I would swerve to avoid a traffic cone.”

- Mavs owner Mark Cuban gets savage, throwing verbal slap after slap at Donald Trump on Stephen Colbert's show, DallasNews.com, July 21, 2016.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.