The Fallout Over Rahm Emanuel's Comment: Shaun Hautly

So maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to say. However, I'm willing to give ANYONE who says "retarded" with that inflection, the benefit of the doubt that they're not referring to Sarah Palin's child or anyone who's mentally handicapped. This is a terrific example though of two things in action: Our language is such where if you're going to insult someone, you have to call them something that they wouldn't want to be AND no matter what you say, someone is listening and if you're a politician, you're screwed.

I play xBox live, and I pray that Sarah Palin will never don the headset. I was playing a game where I was shooting someone and instead got killed. I was called "Gay," "Retarded," "Faggot," "Noob," "Jew," the N-Word, and countless other horrible racial, sexual, and discriminating titles. This stems back to our grade school roots of "you play baseball like a girl." In order to express discontent, you have to tell them that they're something they don't want to be. Half these words have alternate meanings, (Not Noob, though. That one cuts like a knife.) but that doesn't make them any nicer. The point is to insult someone.

However, it doesn't matter what he said. He was going to get burned for it either way. Calling someone stupid can be offensive to stupid people (people below a certain IQ threshold). Rahm made the mistake of not liking someone and classifying their actions as ignorant. He chose a group of people who scientifically cannot make decisions with the same amount of reason that a normal person can, to describe them. But Sarah will say something, Barack, too. We'll all slip up, and if we're in the spotlight, we'll get burned for it. That's American Politics. Don't come back with a Health Care solution, come back with an, "UMMMMMMM!!!! Mrs. Meyers! Rahm called someone retarded!!!!"

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