If she were one of the Seven Dwarfs, she'd be Dopey
You can always count on Sarah Palin to create a mountain out of a molehill, or to create a mountain where not even a molehill exists. This time, the target of her dumbness is White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. It seems that Emanuel, at a policy session a few months back on the health-care issue, used the term "f-ing retarded" to describe liberal activists who were thinking about running ads against some Democratic lawmakers. Well, old "death panel" Palin has gotten wind of this, and she's calling on President Obama to fire Emanuel because of his use of profanity and what she calls his "slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities.” Emanuel has never denied the oft-told tales about his regular use of cuss words. But to suggest that he's taking a shot at handicapped people is just absurd. Webster defines retarded as "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress." That certainly does not apply only to people who are handicapped. It could well be applied to some of our politicians, of all parties and persuasions. It also might very well be applied to Palin, who required nearly a half-dozen colleges to obtain a single bachelor's degree. And anyone who saw her interview with Katie Couric can speak to Palin's intellectual shortcomings. This tempest in a teapot brings to mind a controversy about a decade ago, when an aide to then-Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams quit his post because of the furor over his use of the word "niggardly." A black co-worker apparently took that to be a racial slur when, in fact, the word means "miserly." It has no racial connotation whatsoever. Maybe people who don't know the meaning of words, or that words can have more than one acceptable meaning, should just keep their mouths shut. And if any of you want to take me to task for writing about Palin again, I'll offer a deal. If Palin agrees to stop doing and saying stupid things, and of going out of her way to draw attention to herself, I'll quit blogging about her. In other words, I'll be blogging about Palin for a long time.
posted by Brant at
3:45 PM
15 Comments:
Yeah...the more she talks, the more she makes herself look bad. She also seems to have been reading her own favorable press. Now she seems to be tilting at wind mills all over the place.
As someone that worked for years with the Developmentally challenged, I agree with Palin to some extent. Given the left's desire to demonize words for years, I have little problem with her anger at Emmanuel's statement. There are movements afoot to push the end of the use of the word "retard". It is not stupid of her to use this argument nor is it sign of her stupidity, just a sign that she is always willing to fight the left for their hypocrisy. You don't agree with her and generally side with the leftist view point. That is fine, but to constantly call someone stupid for being on the opposite side does not increase the power of your position, but diminishes the strength of all of your future arguments.
Believe it or not Brant, there are some people out there that are tired of mentally challenged individuals being put down with the term. We have worked for decades to help those individuals become productive citizens. Palin spoke for those individuals. Strangely many of us that have worked with those individuals are also pro life as we understand that mentally challenged individuals would be among the first aborted.
Instead we see value in all life.
But your desire to disparage Palin has few bounds and your insensitivity towards others in your quest to spout seems to also have few bounds. Yet another attempt to inflame rather than inform on your behalf.
Would you honestly walk up to a down syndrome child and call him "retarded"? Do you understand the hurt and pain these human beings feel do to the use of the word? Has the idea entered into your mind once when writing your article? Or where you so obsessed with making fun of Palin that you failed to consider the hurt and harm that such actions have caused the parents, brothers and sisters and friends of mentally challenged individuals. The tears that must be wiped away from the eyes of these individuals at being called by these names. I doubt it because your desire to attack Palin overcomes all reason. If anything your defense of such language shows a failure to understand others plights and positions.
Thanks for the laughs. You have a problem with Democrats "demonizing words," yet you have no problem with Palin doing it. Take about hypocrisy. There's a big difference between using the word retarded and calling someone a "retard." Emanuel was in no way remarking about handicapped people. Your whole argument is based on taking Emanuel's comments completely out of context and applying them in a way in which they were never made. Your whole last paragraph is asinine. Trying to draw a parallel between Emanuel's remark and someone walking up to a disabled child and calling them "retarded" is disingenuous and moronic. I don't call Palin stupid because she's on the "other side." I call her stupid because she's barely more intelligent than my dogs. I'm sorry if my words have bruised your little psyche, but I'm sick to death of the PC crowd, whether Democrat or Republican, trying to hijack our language and turn it into a colorless, dumbed-down mush.
Brant, you are so correct. Someday there will be hardly any words left in the dictionary once the PC crowd has it's way.
Ms. Anonymous sure does need to lighten up!!!
Utility service entrance cover = "manhole."
Chairperson = "chairman"
Firefighter = "fireman"
Unsighted = "blind"
Mentally challenged child of a unwed mother ="crazy bastard"
I'm glad we're making language more precise.
What's truly ironic here is that no one seems bent out of shape that Rahm used the F word. So he could have said "F-in mentally challenged" and gotten a pass.
Personally, I have no problem with the "F word." It seems that we've arbitrarily assigned "badness" to certain words, primarily because they traditionally have been considered not very nice. I think some of our "swear words" are very descriptive and powerful when used effectively. If someone says to me that another person is "highly despicable," I understand what they mean, but if they say someone is a "&^%$# *()&^%$#," it paints a clearer picture.
I favor Elizabethan cursing: "God's blood!" ; "'Od's bodkin!" (by god's little body); "Zounds! (by Christ's wounds).
Or oaths that curse your lineage.
Or the wonderful Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."
I despise the word "retarded." I despise referring to someone as a "retard." My feelings have nothing to do with left or right politics, nor who's in the White House. I don't care about Palin's comments either. She's taking a personal issue and making it political.
Yes, I take it as a personal issue. My 23-year-old daughter is "moderately mentally retarded" and autistic. "Retarded" still is a clinical term, believe it or not. When I hear some schmuck flippantly using "retard" in any form of the word, I get pissed. She didn't ask to be born that way and there's nothing she can do about it. If you want to call me a fatass, knock yourself out. I can diet. She can't "un-retard" herself.
The definition is pretty generic and using it as such makes the word relatively benign. Raising a child like my daughter is very rewarding and people who haven't had the experience will never know that special feeling. Then again, they'll never know the sting of hearing that term referring to anything because it always comes back as an insult whether intended or not.
Well, talk about your double standards. Plug this URL into your browsers. Note that it contains usage that might be offensive to some:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1114
Brant, remember without a carter there wouldn't have been a reagan, without berry there wouldn't have been palin.
Atleast you have a thing for her. get use to it, you will see her for the next 2 terms.
wouldn't the real news be john edwards love child and how he misused his funds?
If I walk up to your mentally handicapped kid and call him a retard, then I deserve to be kicked in the cojones. If I call someone a retard to indicate he's an idiot, it's no worse than calling him an idiot. It's semantics.
it might be semantics but it's pure class not to use the word.
Gosh!! Could someone please just tape Ms. Palin's mouth shut. I'm a Republican, at least I thought I was, and am embarrassed each time I hear her voice. I was amazed at the following she had in Greene and Washington counties back in 2008. Does her hubris, sub-par intellect and irritating, senseless banter actually give her the tools compete on the world stage? She does not speak for me, part of the "real" America. My cat even hisses at the TV screen when she speaks. Why am I thinking about "The Omen" right now. Makes me nervous for 2012.
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