Via RCP. By coincidence, Charles Cooke has a piece out today on the alternate universe you too can inhabit if only you Lean Forward far enough:
America II, as anyone who watches the channel will discover rather swiftly, hosts a supermajority of well-meaning multi-culti, progressive types whose foolproof plans for explosive economic growth, uniform social justice, and general human utopia are constantly being undone by a blossoming white-supremacist movement, split apart by neo-secessionists, and existentially threatened by traitors whose defining characteristic is a never-quite-explained hatred for progress. America II features no gray areas whatsoever: All local variation is apartheid, each and every identification requirement is the second coming of Jim Crow, all criticism of the government is sedition. It’s exhausting.
On a network where smirking references to “teabaggers” are treated as witty, Harris-Perry’s attempt to rehabilitate “ObamaCare” as some sort of slur practically qualifies as clever. How to square the fact that O himself now uses the term with the quasi-religious belief that any Republican messaging about him, no matter how innocuous and easily explained by basic partisanship, must be proof of racism in America II? Simple: Claim that “ObamaCare” was a slur, but now, by embracing the word himself, Obama’s taken the power back. If you find that unpersuasive, remember, decoding conservative criticism of O for alleged racial subtexts is a sort of parlor game on MSNBC. Previously identified dog-whistles include “IRS,” “Chicago,” and my favorite, “golf.” Usually the game ends with some variation of “and that’s why it’s racist,” but MHP’s argument has a whole second part to it. Consider this bar raised.
Legal Insurrection has a nice post tracking the origins of the word “ObamaCare,” including a claim from none other than Anthony Weiner that he coined the term himself. Which, if true, partially vindicates Harris-Perry: A wealthy white man really is responsible. By the way, as I write this, there are roughly 575,000 results for “RomneyCare” on Google. On this site alone, that word appears in more than 250 posts.
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