The "C" word versus the "A" word

Oh
My
God

Says the atheist.

I CAN'T HELP IT, she replies.

Anyway...

If you've been following the U.S. political news, you've been confronted recently by some secret codes. So let me spell things out for you here, where we're unlikely to be censored. *Spoiler alert* There will be words that you might not actually use in public. WHATever.

The McCain campaign has been seesawing over the past week between:

• Energizing their "base"
  • Riling up ethnocentric fears and sensibilities, what's also known as racist and anti-anything-vaguely-foreign sensibilities

• Maintaining a mere shred of cool
  • Insisting verbally that everybody remain "respectful"
  • Insinuating that "Arab" is the opposite of "a good family man" while calling the opponent a good family man
  • Continuing to broadcast commercials that suggest the opponent is a terrorist

The media, which have been falling all over themselves to appear balanced and as a result appear STOOPID, have nevertheless managed to publicize the fact that McCain supporters are getting riled up in sometimes pretty ugly ways. I mean, the woman in line with us outside the Obama rally in Dunedin, FL (on my birthday!) who said, "drop dead" to a McCain supporter across the street did so in a respectfully Jersey accent, clearly indicating that the "drop dead" was what people with other accents would phrase more like, "oh, would you please shut up, dear?" That's one thing. The person at the McCain rally, in response to some of the candidates' rhetoric, shouting "Off with his head"??? No. Uh... no. I'm sorry, but I think even the most die-hard Republican knows (though he or she might not admit it) that there're a good number of really frightened/angry racist individuals on the Republican side right now, and we don't need that element any more fired up than they already are. Sheesh. I mean, REALLY! (to paraphrase SNL)

It's not just me that's making the comparison. With the media pointing out this "dangerous rhetoric" in the McCain campaign, we have bloggers all over the place (could I link? yeah, but I'm lazy) saying HEY, WHAT GIVES? about the media not noting "similarly" bad behavior on the part of Obama supporters.

The "drop dead" lady notwithstanding... one of the examples I saw raised was of a group of young people at a Palin rally. They were "using the C-word."

They had t-shirts proclaiming that Palin is a cunt.

Yeah, I said it.

Here's the thing: Said blogger suggested that we'd see it all over the news if some McCain supporters showed up at an Obama rally with t-shirts calling Obama "the N-word" (that's code for nigger, in case you didn't know).

WHAT?!

First: Sorry, ladies, but calling somebody a cunt is not the same as calling somebody a nigger. Why is it different? Because we have no respect in this society for cunts. Yes, that's right. Calling somebody a "cunt" is saying that person is worthless. In contrast, calling soebody a "nigger" is saying two things: 1. That person is worthless, BUT 2. That person is dangerous and should be lynched.

It has ever been the case that niggers have been looked upon with this kind of twisted (lack of) logic: Stupid, lazy, and yet somehow quite likely to beat you in a fight, possibly plotting to take over your country, cuz we know that stupid and lazy people are capable of such things.

So I'm sorry, but calling the vice-presidential candidate a "cunt" is liable to incite... laughter and sneers. And calling the presidential candidate a "nigger" (or worse, apparently: the "A" word, aka Arab) is liable to incite assassination attempts.

Stop patting yourselves on the back for being just as maligned. You're not, sadly. You should be, but you're not.