Of course TBogg and the Lefties think that Rice is “Brown Sugar”.

One of the problems that has always alienated white liberals from the black community is a barely concealed condescension. As in “we know what is best for you, so vote for us and our politicians, and all will be well.” This is the subtext of the patron/client relationship that the Democratic Party has with the black community.

Like I wrote earlier, Rice’s presence in politics reveals an inner ugliness among many white liberals towards the black community whose revelation was entirely accidental, but was there nonetheless. TBogg thought he was being ironic and funny. In fact, he was letting out his inner Kleagle that most in the black community understand lurks in the background.

TBogg hates Rice not because of the war. That’s simply superstructure, to use a Marxian term. TBogg hates Rice because she is no longer “property” and is not a client. She rejects his political assumptions and some of his shared world views. Even without the war, the anger and rejection would be present, because once a black individual rejects even a few of the values of a white liberal, the alienation is often as personal as it is political.

What was most revelatiory here was the descent into racial and sexual stereotypes. That crossed the boundary into racism. Not that “redwards” above is anywhere close to being on “my side” in this issue, but she raises the issue that others, like Jrod above avoided: TBogg descended into a racial and sexual stereotype-the use of the heavily loaded sexual stereotype “brown sugar”. He did it deliberately and with malice aforethought, and white liberals are here on this board, rationalizing it and defending it precisely because TBogg is on their side. They would rather defend him instead of admit that he might have been both wrong and trafficking in racial and sexual stereotypes common among white people when using language directed at black women.

Jrod simply sidesteps the entire issue by demonizing Rice with fatuous hyperbole in his post, which ergo, makes it okay for TBogg to use racial and sexual stereotypes in debate. Do you see where this kind of thinking leads you people?

The blind have been leading the blind here. It’s been a catalogue of rationalizations and defensiveness since day one, which is about what I expected. Sad to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Liberals never disappoint me, since there are few standards that you people live up to. After all, you folks live in a world of situational ethics.

Do we have to fucking pretend that Condi Rice is not a soulless monster who feels no remorse for the hundreds of thousands she’s helped to kill, because she traded in any shred of conscience and integrity for the right to be George Dubya Bush’s servant, a position she earned not through merit but through her skill as a boot-licking toady who fills Bush’s need for female affection he gets from neither his wife nor mother?!

No promises on that.

well thats one way to look at it.
Here is another:

She was wolfies girlfriend and one could assume ALL the normal girlfriend favors were provided, so he got her a great job and a nice bit o’ coin to go with it.
Condi is pouty because this girlfriend makes more than she does when her husband is the POTUS, this is where you tack on the Doonsbury.
Funny, actually.

Naw, it’s because, Section9, if you got on the Clue Train, and rode down Clue Avenue, and got off at the site of the Clue Parade, to hear the great Clue Queen stand on her Clue Van, and sing her heartfelt tune of “We’ve Got UR Clues Right Here!” You wouldn’t get one.

Personally, I’m too far gone on the too-many-dead-babies side of the issue to ever have a feeling that there’s any need for Emily Post restraint when addressing Ms. Rice.

Mr. Escher? Meet Mr. Narcoleptic.

1) Conservative asshole with influence, audience of millions and long history of acting like an asshole gets comeuppance.

2) Another conservative asshole points a stinky “but you too” finger at one questionable comment by relatively unknown, uninfluential lefty with audience of perhaps a few thousand.

3) The left beats on the little lefty.

There comes a time when the eternal quest for unattainable purity becomes markedly counterproductive.

Besides, if you look through the various snarks of myself and nearly everyone else here through the typical MSM and/or wingnut and/or concern troll outrage lens, “one would have to conclude” that Charles Johnson is correct. Which, of course, he isn’t.

One rule of thumb about bigoted remarks: If the only people complaining are people who aren’t remotely the targets of the remark in question, and in fact are people who often traffic in very similar sentiments, then you just might be getting smoke blown up your ass.

Robert’s right and “brown sugar” is a loaded term*, and it occurs to me that progressives should be aware of that, particularly us white folk. It’s sorta like Kerry’s joke that got ‘em all a-twitter back before the elections. I’m not arguing self-censorship so’s not to offend the delicate senisbilities of fucking scum like the folks who actually celebrate(d) the anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death like it was the Fourth of fucking July, among many other things, but one should be aware of it. If that makes any sense.

* Course, it isn’t the Stones song that comes to my mind; it’s Sam & Dave’s “Soul Sister, Brown Sugar”, which makes “brown sugar” mean something entirely different. Maybe.

When TBogg puts it in his own mouth, as a postscript to a story about a woman retained and vastly overpaid solely because she provided sexual favors to a powerful man, it no longer comes across as satire; instead, it’s a direct implication that she traded sex for a highly-visible position.

Or, perhaps, it’s an implication that she traded something else of high personal value (say, her integrity, or the courage of her convicitions, or willingness to speak truth to power, or the value of being an honest broker) and was rewarded for her loyalty with a significant promotion.

If that’s too wordy, we could just say “just because a politician doesn’t actually have sex with a lobbyst, don’t mean he’s not a whore!”

(given the strange & repeated instances of homoeroticism in this administration, had Colin Powell stayed onboard, I’m sure Tbogg’s joke would work equally well if not better)

And by the way, the underlying joke here works with Trudeau’s original bit as well: just because she isn’t literally offering sexual favors in exchange for power at the White House doesn’t mean she hasn’t sold otut her personal values to an administration that values loyalty over all else.

At the end of the day, what leaves me feeling sad is I probably have more sympathy for a woman who actually did trade sexual favors for power than I do for a person who compromises their values & ethics, selling out themselves in a much more personal way. Sex is a much more available commidity than integrity, I’m afraid.

Seriously, folks, aren’t there other places to argue about this kind of thing besides a satirical comedy blog?

I think the Aryan = Leftist issues is far more important. We could argue the implications of calling someone with brown skin ‘brown’ for days. I went to an Extreme Left (Fairhaven/WWU) college in the mid-nineties, so maybe I’m a little war-weary when it comes to endless semantics arguments…

I thought it was a bit much as well, but it’s overweighed by the spectacle of actual genocidal racists stomping through, aghastly accusing him of racism.

…And then using a call to murder by Aryan Nations (also actual, genocidal racists) to aghastly attack peace demonstrators.

I mean, there’s a psychological term for that.

Tbogg doesn’t think Condi is “brown sugar�, any more than Gary Trudeau thinks Ms. Rice is “brown sugar�. This is what they imagine other Republicans, including the President think of Ms. Rice!

When Gary Trudeau puts “Brown Sugar” in Bush’s mouth, it’s satire that underlines Bush’s barely-concealed racism, his bizarrely inappropriate conduct with female peers, and his faux-paternalistic cruelty toward his subordinates.

When TBogg puts it in his own mouth, as a postscript to a story about a woman retained and vastly overpaid solely because she provided sexual favors to a powerful man, it no longer comes across as satire; instead, it’s a direct implication that she traded sex for a highly-visible position.

I’m perfectly willing to concede that it was intended as a joke, but if so, it fell embarrassingly flat. I’m not excommunicating TBogg from the lefty fold, or saying he’s worse than LGF, or anything of the sort–I just don’t think the comment was appropriate, and I’m surprised that S,N! felt like they should defend him.

Let me see if I’ve got this right:

Blogger>/b> tbogg makes a post that riffs on a comic strip by cartoonist Gary Trudeau that features an imagined dialogue wherein a joke is made that our current president, with his penchant for odd and often embarassing nicknames, would use a racially charged term for a woman who describes himself as “his other wife”. And this somehow makes tbogg the racist?

To quote Daffy Duck after a facefull of shotgun… “let’s run through that again…”

A cartoonist imagines the president using a racist term for his female, black employee and implies an inappropriate relation between the two based on jokes made on the record about one being a ‘wife’ to the other.

A blogger takes the joke and runs with is, drawing a parallel between Wolfowitz and his actual girlfriend who has recieved far more in raises than she should have, with the only obvious explanation beign that she is romantically tied to the president of the bank where she works.

One more time, for the slow kids:
Tbogg doesn’t think Condi is “brown sugar”, any more than Gary Trudeau thinks Ms. Rice is “brown sugar”. This is what they imagine other Republicans, including the President think of Ms. Rice! Given Mr. Bush’s history of using odd nicknames, often in questionable taste (Pooty-Poot? Turdblossom) and his peculair behavior towards other women in power, (remember his infamous “back-rub” of the German Chancellor?) it does not seem too much of a stretch to suggest that he might use an equally inappropriate and tasteless term for Ms. Rice.

Or does my imagining & suggesting that someone else (a privelledged rich frat boy from Texas) might be a racist make me a racist as well?

How … incongruous.