Reading Racism Between the Lines

In a year when it is racist to call Senator Obama "skinny," Paul Waldman, writing at The American Prospect, has realized that the Obama Energy Plan Tire Gauge -- much beloved by some ThreeSourcers -- is actually a, um, I think I'll let him say it:

The message couldn't be plainer: See that itty-bitty, little tire gauge? If you vote for Obama, that's how big your penis is. If you vote for McCain, on the other hand, your penis is as big as this [working oil] rig, thrusting its gigantic shaft in and out of the ground! Real men think keeping your tires inflated is for weenies.

Wow. I missed the PoMo, feminist collegiate experience by: a) being old, b) studying math and hard science, and c) dropping out. But I have encountered it because I read a lot of literary criticism of Buffy and Angel (sometimes a sword is just a sword, Doctor).

If every candidate is going to have to justify the double indirection parsing of his or her words, we're going to get even farther away from a serious philosophical election.

Hat-tip: Attila (who else?), reminding that I have been remiss in not linking to "When CPA Means 'Jew'," even though I have laughed about it every day since I read it. Riffing off the "skinny" contretemps, Attila recalls the 2000 Lieberman-Cheney debate:

. . . and it's really quite obvious that Cheney's reference to CPAs is a not-so-veiled allusion to Lieberman's Jewish background. What Cheney said was, "You have to be a CPA to understand what he just said." A CPA. Get it? He could just as easily have said, "You have to be a Jew to understand what that Jew just said." And then Cheney went on to say, "The fact of the matter is the plan is so complex that the ordinary American is never going to ever figure out what they even qualify for." The "ordinary American," as opposed to the Jew. That's not very subtle, either, painting the Jew as the Other.

Politics Posted by jk at August 18, 2008 5:08 PM