How Not to Help Barack Obama Get Elected
by Melissa McEwan

Don't use the phrase "tar baby."

The End.

* * *
Now, someone in the senate office of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) put my new book on his summer reading list, 'k?


I'll just repeat what I said when Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) used the term back in May:

Cue the usual excuses about how Davis Kerry "didn't know" and "didn't intend" and blahbity-blahbity-blah. Except that Davis Kerry really, really, really should have known, given that almost exactly two years ago to the day, Tony Snow made his grand entrance as White House Press Hack by using the term tar baby not once, but twice, to a resulting shitstorm. Snow was followed soon thereafter by Mitt Romney using the term and being forced to apologize. And, if that weren't enough, the GOP nominee, John McCain, found himself apologizing for using the phrase just over a year ago.

[And, of course, ADD HERE what Davis pulled in May.]

So, unless Davis Kerry is completely and utterly detached from what's going on with prominent members of his own the opposition party, he ought to have, at some point, gotten the memo that "tar baby" is not a turn of phrase that has any place in public discourse in modern America. (Or private discourse, quite frankly.)

It's not enough that the current Democratic nominee is giving me reasons not to vote for him or his stinking party; now the former nominee is, too.

[H/T to Renee of Womanist Musings, whose post you should read as well. "Six-Word Novel" concept nicked from The Heretik.]