Republican Tea Party (GOTP) has been Sarah Palin is criticizing President Obama for his handling of the Benghazi attack posting a Facebook message attacking him for his “shuck and jive,” a phrase with obvious racial connotations to anyone with half a brain.
Palin’s Facebook post, entitled “Obama’s Shuck and Jive Ends With Benghazi Lies,” loosely discussed – as only Palin can – recently released emails disclosing more details on the Benghazi, Libya, attack.
“Why the lies? Why the cover up?” she mews. “Why the dissembling about the cause of the murder of our ambassador on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil? We deserve answers to this. President Obama’s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end.”
Of course the phrase, “shuck and jive” caught more attention than Palin’s pathetic message, and it didn’t take long for Twitter to blow up with criticism over her choice of words.
Washington Post reporter Erik Wemple said the etymology of the phrase, via the Online Etymology Dictionary: “[B]lack slaves sang and shouted gleefully during corn-shucking season, and this behavior, along with lying and teasing, became a part of the protective and evasive behavior normally adopted towards white people in ‘traditional’ race relations.”
Palin’s current stick appears to be insulting the President on a semi-regular basis, telling him last month to grow a “big stick”, but she’s also accused her critics of committing a “blood libel,” last January.
Palin’s an idiot. She’s not particularly bright and her political bona fides are next to nonexistent since she’s never completed a single elected term of office. She was a joke as mayor, a joke as governor and a joke as a vice presidential nominee, but she’s even more of a joke as so-called political pundit – it’s time for her to go away.
Reggie Greene / The Logistician
October 24, 2012 at 16:51
While I agree that her comments were inappropriate and unnecessary, and would urge folks to not engage in such speech, I have a different position.
I know that lots of people feel that words and symbols are powerful; however, it just seems to me that during a period of economic stress and when we need to focus on more immediate, significant issues to get people working again, we should relegate discussions about words and symbols to tertiary, if not lower, status in terms of prioritization. We need to focus on inventions, scientists, engineers and innovation. We can get back to the emotional stuff once the economy improves.
As a partner of mine once noted on my blog: “Along with the right to free speech comes the right to make a public fool of oneself; and like the naked, fools have little or no influence on society.”
Finally, we should never underestimate the power of laughter.