Monday, July 31, 2006

The Slur strikes back

If we ever needed more proof that politicians are not coming close to paying attention to what's going around them, we recently received it. No, not the United States attitude towards Iraq, or Israel, or even Iowa. No, we got confirmation in the form of Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney. And, actually, it does tie into Iowa, because it was in front of a group of Iowa Republicans that Gov. Romney proved that those who don't learn from history (or even pay attention to the fact that something happened) are doomed to repeat it.

Apparently on Saturday, during a fundraising speech (Romney wants to run for President) in Ames, the Governor was talking about the Big Dig tunnel project, a project that has had problems almost since day one. Well, in describing the project, he made mention of the fact that maybe he shouldn't have taken responsibility for it, and referred to the project as a "tar baby".

Wait a minute.... haven't we experienced this before? Oh, that's right. Back in May, Tony Snow got into some hot water after the press conference where he made mention of "hugging the tar baby". He quickly came under fire for making a potentially racist comment, and for the overall lack of sensitivity required to make the comment. Romney, by making the same connection in describing a different situation, proves that he wasn't aware enough to look back three month to the last time a politician got into hot water over the same word choice.

Almost enough to make me wonder which public figure is going to be the next to make some potentially racist slur and be forced to apologize, shortly after another figure has made a similar slur. Seems like the next one on the chopping block would be disparaging comments against Jews. After all, we can't let Mel Gibson stand alone. Two men have to enter before one man can leave.

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