Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Did Matthews smear Jindal?
I was at the office last night and so missed Bobby Jindal's speech. A couple of conservative female people I know said that they loved it, but the blog reaction at Memeorandum is decided mixed. I have not, however, seen any reaction to this claim from FP Passport, hardly a right-wing nuthouse:
Did MSNBC's Chris Matthews really just say that the struggling Republicans needed to "outsource" their response to Indian-American Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal?
Seems like an unfortunate choice of words.
Yes, he said it. Unfortunate, but not necessarily unintentional. Indeed, after saying "outside guy" at least twice, Matthews then said "outsource" to clarify. It looked quite deliberate to me.
Now, to be clear, I think that the post-modern parsing of language to create the appearance of ethnic or racial insensitivity is complete hogwash, but the Democrats are great practitioners of it and MSNBC loves it when Republicans and other white men say something that a key constituency can argue as offensive. It is hard to believe that a talking head as schooled in this game as Chris Matthews used the word inadvertently.
15 Comments:
By 
Viking Kaj, at
Wed Feb 25, 02:13:00 PM:
Hey, they were just going with the Slumdog flow. After all, you can't fight Bollywood...
By Viking Kaj, at
Wed Feb 25, 02:15:00 PM:
Hey, speaking of Slumdogs, can we get Chris Matthews to tend to the privy for a while?
By 
, at
Wed Feb 25, 02:22:00 PM:
With or without the racialist connotation, of course Matthews smeared Jindal
By L.N. Smithee, at
Wed Feb 25, 02:54:00 PM:
I am a black man who agrees with you wholeheartedly about "post-modern parsing of language to create the appearance of ethnic or racial insensitivity." I am preparing a post on my own blog to address the Chimp Cartoon Controversy.
When these statements happen, one point of demarcation is whether or not context is affected by changing the ethnic group. In the case of the chimp cartoon, the gag was only offensive if the President being insulted is black. Roland Martin, a black minister/author who went on CNN to call the New York Post and the cartoonist racist, unintentionally admitted that much in his syndicated column on the topic:
We all know that the stimulus bill was the first priority of the new president, so when reading the caption, it was easy to infer that the cartoonist was implying the president of the United States.
You know, the black guy.
And that's where the problem comes in.
What could be seen as silly humor if former President George W. Bush were in the White House has to be seen through the lens of America's racist past[...]
So, what Roland Martin is saying is that calling Bush a chimp (as many leftist extremists did for the past eight years) is "silly humor" because he's not black, and thus not racist. But you can't or wouldn't call Obama a chimp unless you are a bigot.
That's ridiculous on its face -- calling anyone a monkey is an insult, and beneath a decent editorial cartoonist. But that misses the main point; the artist, Sean Delonas, wasn't calling Obama a monkey, he was calling a MONKEY a monkey!
By L.N. Smithee, at
Wed Feb 25, 03:07:00 PM:
Sorry, hit "Publish" before making my final points.
In another ill-advised quip on the news set, San Francisco anchorwoman Dana King of KPIX-TV said Dale Earnhardt Jr. "should marry his stepmother." As I posted at the time on NewsBusters, Sure, it’s a “joke.” But what type of joke is it? One that plays on stereotypes of southerners as inbred hicks. Don't think so? Think about it: Would King's joke have made sense if Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the most popular figure in yacht racing? If this was bicycle racing and not NASCAR, and the dispute was about Lance Armstrong’s feud with his stepmother, would anyone have suggested Lance marry his father’s widow?
In the case of Matthews, it ONLY makes sense saying "outsource" if he is making reference to/fun of Jindal's Indian heritage. He'll laugh it off, and so will Keith "Oh God" Blowhardmann. Doesn't matter. Kick the tingle out of his leg.
By , at
Wed Feb 25, 04:17:00 PM:
L.N. I think you'll be a welcome relief from our pal Chambers ... btw ... I read that Chimp cartoon as suggesting that Congress was a bunch of (monkees/chimps, whatever the animal was technically) and NOT an affront to our mixed-race POTUS. The text was 'write', not 'enact' or 'sign'.
It is shameful to see all this spending being foisted on us, and amusing to watch young Obama supporters whining about generational theft ... they are, after all, going to pay dearly for "Hope and Change".
I still hope that Obama is a successful POTUS, but my doubts are increasing ...
By , at
Wed Feb 25, 04:50:00 PM:
But did Mathews get a thrill up his leg during the speech last night?
I have an idea he and Bahny Fwank could be really good friends.
Being southern, I didn't get twisted out of shape over the Earnhart remark, either. Besides, he drives a Chevrolet.
By Viking Kaj, at
Wed Feb 25, 04:50:00 PM:
Hey, speaking of outsourcing, do you suppose we could outsource Mafews and Dolbermann's jobs to the kids from Slumdog?
Seems to me they would have a better grasp of capitalism, and they wouldn't have to work hard to be more entertaining...
By Christopher Chambers, at
Wed Feb 25, 07:14:00 PM:
No he didn't, but I did. Jindal looks like a pale Stewie Griffin...though Stewie's more articulate and certainly no cypher. Though they both are cartoons...
By , at
Wed Feb 25, 07:50:00 PM:
The degree to which the left is worried about the potential of someone on the right is directly proportional to the speed with which they try to take him or her down. They're clearly worried about Jindal.
By , at
Wed Feb 25, 09:38:00 PM:
More mindless insults from Chris Matthews? Why does he still have a job?
By , at
Wed Feb 25, 10:44:00 PM:
The Pillsbury Dough Boy is a liberal, he can say any thing he pleases. It is the evil conservatives who must be PC.
By , at
Thu Feb 26, 02:23:00 AM:
Matthews has been going after Jindal all day today too. Unfortunately for the GOP, Jindal offered himself as an easy target by delivering a really lousy reply to Obama. I did notice Matthews use of "outsource." He did backtrack by throwing in "outside guy" as in, outside Washington. He ma have done that because he grasped that he had committed a faux pas by saying outsource. In any case, doing so may have been a Freudian slip. Matthews is often tripping over his words and slipping like that. It would be wrond to call it racism, though. There's more than enough of that sort of accusation.
http://thepurplecenter.blogspot.com/
By , at
Thu Feb 26, 09:07:00 AM:
Jindal's lukewarm support of teaching creationism has Charles Johnson in a lather, and I agree.
By , at
Thu Feb 26, 09:54:00 AM:
Hey, Mathews won the election. He can say whatever he wants. Live with it!
