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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Quiz Time! What’s More Offensive?

posted by on July 10 at 10:51 AM

scaled.obama-jockey2.jpg

There’s no denying it: the battle for the 2008 presidency is gonna get U-G-L-Y. Last month, right-wing blow-up doll Michelle Malkin defended describing Michelle Obama as “Obama’s Baby Mama” because, hey, Michelle Obama had once called Barack her “Baby’s Daddy”! This brought an equally breathtaking retort from Stranger news editor Erica C. Barnett, who took to Slog to suggest it was fair play to refer to Cindy McCain as a “trollop-like cunt” because, hey, McCain had once done so himself! (On the 1992 campaign trail. Exact words: “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.”) This week brought both this and this.

Clearly, we’re in for a four-and-half-month hurricane of bitterness and boundary-pushing tastelessness—and we better get used to it. To help acclimate readers to the new political climate, here’s a handy quiz, wherein readers must answer but one question:

What’s more offensive?

RSS icon Comments

1

ECB's dive into the sewer with Malkin is an example of why we should be grateful she isn't on Obama's side.

Posted by elenchos | July 10, 2008 10:56 AM
2

Adding a choice called 'fuck you' is dramatically skewing the results of this poll. How can anyone resist?!

Posted by jackie treehorn | July 10, 2008 10:59 AM
3

1: ECB was making a rhetorical point. Also, your ability to translate every morsel of human experience into a testament to ECB's alleged awfulness is awe-inspiring, and perhaps pathological.

Posted by David Schmader | July 10, 2008 11:01 AM
4

Yes, David. Perhaps it is pathological. Especially since everybody but me thinks ECB is an honest reporter worthy of implicit trust. I should see a shrink.

Posted by elenchos | July 10, 2008 11:05 AM
5

Pathological ... or a shrewd insight?

Hmmm.

Questions, questions.

But never answers unless we can gin up another fake outrage to get tons of SLOG comments over a straw man argument ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 10, 2008 11:09 AM
6

4: If you have real issues with ECB's work, you do yourself a great disservice by diluting whatever actual criticism you may have with such deliberately point-missing gunk as your first reply to this post.

Posted by David Schmader | July 10, 2008 11:10 AM
7

elenchos, you know I think highly of your writing. But I, too, think ECB is now the Moby Dick to your Captain Ahab.

Posted by Big Sven | July 10, 2008 11:15 AM
8

"Fuck you for asking" is brilliant. All SLOG polls for the rest of time should include this option, to gauge voter apathy/displeasure.

Posted by Big Sven | July 10, 2008 11:21 AM
9

Also, to bring this thread back on track, I'd like to announce that I've done the math and can state unequivocally that a John McCain POW pinata is more offensive that a Barack Obama lawn jockey.

For those of the "show your work" school of mathematics, here it is:

The Obama lawn jockey carries the weight of however many centuries of general American racism, but it's applied, somewhat arbitrarily, to a man who is half-white. That's 100 percent offensive racism applied to 50 percent of a man.

But the McCain pinata is 100 percent offensive and 100 percent personal (it was McCain and only McCain hung up in that POW camp).

Still, the correct answer to the quiz is 3.

Posted by David Schmader | July 10, 2008 11:21 AM
10

The "point", supposedly, is to invalidate the right's smear tactics by turning those same smear tactics back on them. If I remember right, Marc Penn, Hillary Clinton, and their compatriots like noquarterusa.net and ECB, did their best to sell that smelly kettle of fish, and it failed. They lost. Voters rejected that kind of crap and instead chose a different kind of politics.

My point is that if you are still clinging to that mode of thinking at this late date, you are a classic dead-ender. Unable to learn, no where to go.

Sven, I think I'm being confused with whoever was posting about ECB in a thread that didn't even mention her. David wrote about ECB, among other things, and I responded about her. What of it?

Posted by elenchos | July 10, 2008 11:25 AM
11

@7 for the win. Kudos, Big Sven. And I too voted Fuck You for Asking ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 10, 2008 11:36 AM
12

Maybe it depends on what's coming out of the pińata.

Posted by Darcy | July 10, 2008 11:44 AM
13

Too bad Hilary isn’t still in the campaign. We could have voted on the inappropriateness of her likeness being used to imitate a nutcracker. Oh, wait, that’s real.

http://hillarynutcracker.com/completelynuts.html

Posted by I'm black! Really! | July 10, 2008 11:46 AM
14

I think the pinata is more tasteless, but the lawn jockey is more offenisve.

I was supportive when I thought you were praising ECB's use of the term "trollop-like cunt" for Cindy, but I guess you were being critical...

Posted by cracked | July 10, 2008 12:00 PM
15

12: Just like the real John McCain, his pinata likeness is full of shit.

13: Good point. Still, to be truly comparable with the pinata and lawn jockey, it would have to be a Hillary blow-up doll, filled with ice.

Posted by David Schmader | July 10, 2008 12:03 PM
16

@15

David, you do know that PUMA and other Hillary diehards are outraged that Obama asked MoveOn to cool it, and that MoveOn complied?

Talking about the Hillary nutcracker without that bit of context is totally misleading. Hillary's people would have winked at the existence of unaffiliated groups producing offensive messages like the nutcracker -- as long as they targeted the opposition. It is not the case that all parties are equally guilty of these extra-curricular attacks.

Posted by elenchos | July 10, 2008 12:09 PM
17

Elenchos get a life, seriously. It's sad how much time you put in to commenting.

Posted by Non | July 10, 2008 12:15 PM
18

@17

What's sad is how many people get worked up over what I say. Out of the billions of unimportant words on the internet, you've got the time to complain about mine.

See, "You're a bigger nerd than me!" is a classic flamewarrior canard, and it doesn't work.

Posted by elenchos | July 10, 2008 12:21 PM
19

@18

I wasn't speaking to the way others react to what you say. I was speaking to how involved, frequent, and persistent you commenting is. I'm mocking how pathetic your life is in this respect and how much of is wasted in the threads.

I skim and post one-liners. I've already written too much and seeeeriously don't care enough to go on.

Posted by Non | July 10, 2008 12:27 PM
20

@19

Non, I can just see you in the Dungeons & Dragons club when you were 14, telling all the other boys that they were toooootal losers for spending 9 hours a day on that dorky game, whereas you only spend 8 hours.

Geek.

Posted by elenchos | July 10, 2008 12:37 PM
21

I didn't read your comment but I knew you would.

Posted by Non | July 10, 2008 12:45 PM
22

I didn't read your comment but I knew you would.

Posted by Non | July 10, 2008 1:14 PM
23

#9 is correct, accept for one point; McCain isn't Latino, so the full power of the epithet is lost. I mean, beating a POW pinata is pretty damn tasteless, but the Obama lawn jockey is much colder by being somehow, less campy.

Posted by Dougsf | July 10, 2008 1:16 PM
24

Oh. My. God. Non is ridiculous. How do you know how much elenchos posts if you "only skim and post one liners"? And why is only skimming and then posting one liners better? Doesn't that mean that everything you post is unresearched and ill thought out? geez.

Posted by nicole | July 10, 2008 1:34 PM
25

i think the pinata is more offensive due to the personal nature of the subject matter. the lawn jockey just doesn't make much sense when applied to a us senator. i mean, that's the best you can do? a lawn jockey? the guy is running for president and all you got is a lawn jockey stereotype? pfft...

Posted by douglas | July 10, 2008 1:36 PM
26

I would like to officially distance myself from "Non" and his argument that you post too much, elenchos. You don't post nearly as much as fnarf or Will.

You just work anti-ECB comments into a lot of your posts. And no, I'm not confusing you with the guy who got yelled at by the Dan Savage spoofer. I just find the whole anti-Erica thing on the SLOG really boring, and am surprised that you find Erica so annoying. I like your relentless pounding of PC, though.

Posted by Big Sven | July 10, 2008 1:41 PM
27

@23 - actually, McCain is Panamanian, so he is an illegal candidate.

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 10, 2008 2:24 PM
28

David Schmader @ 15
People are too busy arguing to notice the brilliance of your post.
I know when I've been Schmadered.
You nailed it. On the nose. Hands down.

Posted by I'm Black! Really! | July 10, 2008 4:53 PM
29

#27 - Army bases are US soil, so that don't count.

#25 - I might be just assuming the worst intention, but I was figuring the creator was thinking Harriet Tubman-era lawn jockey, not just a yard decoration.

Posted by Dougsf | July 10, 2008 4:59 PM
30

I'm not sure @25 knows the lawn jockey history... they were around when I was a boy, in the last century, in the 70's... er, 1970's, not 1870's.

I just checked on the lawn jockey history, and found out that there's a lot of head scratching about what it all meant. But, just like Confederate flags -- there's not a whole lot of doubt about most white folks who love them.

David @9, yes, it's inaccurate racism, but that's how it goes with the racists. One drop'll do ya.

Posted by CP | July 10, 2008 6:11 PM

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