The MSM are all atwitter over RNC chairman hopeful Chip Saltsman’s holiday music CD, "We Hate the USA,” that skewers libs with 41 parody songs, such as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright Place, Wrong Pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “The Star Spanglish Banner” and “Barack the Magic Negro,” which radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh first aired in 2007.

 

None of the articles The Stiletto read about the CD quoted the “Magic Negro” lyrics by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin (set to “Puff, the Magic Dragon”) or the Los Angeles Times op-ed by liberal David Ehrenstein that inspired the parody (it should be noted that when Limbaugh debuted the song, Jake Tapper’s report included a link to the op-ed, as well as to a Wikipedia explanation of the term “magical negro” as a literary trope). Here’s a snippet of Ehrenstein’s op-ed:

 

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. …

As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic - embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic." …

The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. …

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.

 

 And here’s the context for Ehrenstein’s observations, courtesy of Wikipedia:

 

The magical negro (sometimes called the mystical negro or magic negro) is a supporting, often mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble. …

 

The magical negro is typically but not always “in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint,” often a janitor or prisoner. He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist. He sometimes fits the black stereotype, “prone to criminality and laziness.” To counterbalance this, he has some sort of magical power, “rather vaguely defined but not the sort of thing one typically encounters.” He is patient and wise, often dispensing various words of wisdom …

 

The magical negro … help[s] the white character recognize his own faults and overcome them. Although he has magical powers, his “magic is ostensibly directed toward helping and enlightening a white male character.”

 

Examples of magical negroes in literature and film include Uncle Remus, Morpheus and Bagger Vance.

 

Though current Repub party chair Mike Duncan and Newt Gingrich are both hyperventilating (the former is “shocked and appalled,” the latter thinks “[t]his is so inappropriate … it should disqualify [Saltsman]”), everyone save the humorless and hypocritical understands that the parody song and the concept of the magical negro have less to do with Obama himself than to the supernatural qualities being projected onto him – which is the point Ehrenstein was making. To cite one example: NewsBusters reported that “[d]uring MSNBC’s coverage of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai … daytime anchor Alex Witt seemed frustrated that the election of Barack Obama 23 days earlier - and the accompanying “global outpouring of affection, respect, hope” - had not caused an end to terrorist violence.”

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

 

The number of illegal aliens caught sneaking into the U.S. has plummeted to the lowest level in 32 years, reports USA Today: 
 

The Border Patrol caught 705,000 people along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2008, which ended Sept. 30, according to new agency figures. That's nearly 2,000 a day and the lowest number since 1976, when 675,000 people were caught entering illegally between San Diego and southern Texas, the figures show. …

 

The latest figures show that recent steps - including building a fence, adding more Border Patrol agents and prosecuting more people caught sneaking across the border - are deterring illegal crossings, officials say. The weak U.S. economy also is discouraging migrants, officials and analysts say. …

 

About 97% of illegal border crossers enter through Mexico, and about 90% are Mexican, Border Patrol figures show.

 

Josiah Heyman, a border expert at the University of Texas-El Paso, said that "economic conditions of the U.S. affect migration. Word gets back to Mexico really fast what the job opportunities are or are not," Heyman said. …

 

The Congressional Research Service said in May that the number of apprehensions is "the most reliable" measure of illegal crossings but doesn't give a full picture because "there are no reliable estimates" of those who evade capture.

 

Editorial Note: The MSM habitually elides the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. But here’s a twist on the disingenuous formulation – lumping everyone who is without healthcare coverage together, as in this Washington Post article about community hospitals going under:

 

Gainesville's first community hospital has been on life support since the Shands Healthcare system in northern Florida bought it a dozen years ago.

 

Now, because of the recession, the plug is being pulled on 80-year-old, money-losing Shands AGH. …

 

Like many U.S. hospitals, Shands is being squeezed by tight credit, higher borrowing costs, investment losses and a jump in patients - many recently unemployed or otherwise underinsured - not paying their bills [emphasis, The Stiletto].

 

The “otherwise” refers to forged documented aliens, whose small business employers often pay them less than minimum wage (second item) and almost never provide health benefits. By law, hospitals are required to provide treatment to illegals, and community hospitals go bankrupt when other patients with high deductible health plans cannot afford to defray these losses by paying $50 for a Tylenol or $500 for post-surgery support stockings. 

 

 

Well-Chosen Words: Part VII

 

The Stiletto Blog’s final round-up for 2008 of words and phrases - and verbal tics (second item) - that made the news:

† Does NY Senate hopeful Caroline Kennedy say “you know” and “um” a lot? You betcha! It seems she cannot get through a single sentence without repeated use of the verbal fillers people typically use to buy time when they don’t know how to answer a question (like, "Why do you want to be a Senator?"). The New York Daily News reports that during a 30-minute “chat” she “rarely made eye contact” and “[h]er speech was often punctuated with extra ‘you knows’ and ‘ums’”):

 

I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party.

 

I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. And, you know, and that would be obviously true with my relationship with the mayor.

 

Andrew is, you know, highly qualified for this job. He's doing a, you know, a great job as attorney general, and we've spoken throughout this process.

 

You know, I think, you know, we're sort of, uh, sharing some of this experience. And um, as I've said, he was a friend, a family member, and um so, and uh obviously, he's, you know, he's also had an impressive career in public office.

 

It's really, you know, it's not about just the Kennedy name. It's about my own work and what I've done with those values.

 

The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund reckons that the total number of “you knows” came to 168 in another interview Kennedy did with local cable news show “NY One,” and concludes: “If the [Sarah] Palin standard were applied, Ms. Kennedy would be roundly judged unsuited for the national political stage.”

 

Fund was scooped on Sunday by Daily News political analyst Michael Goodwin (“[a]sked about her qualifications, she fell back on gibberish and the Kennedy name”):

 

[A] strange thing is happening on the way to the coronation. The wheels of the bandwagon are coming off. Fantasy is giving way to inescapable truth.

 

That truth is that Kennedy is not ready for the job and doesn't deserve it. Somebody who loves her should tell her.

 

Her quest is becoming a cringe-inducing experience, as painful to watch as it must be to endure. … [I]n the last few days, her mini-campaign has proved she has little to offer New Yorkers except her name.

 

 Um, The Stiletto can, uh, only say, you know, ouch!

 

† TV journalists seem at a loss as to how to encapsulate the dire economic straits in which we find ourselves into a pithy phrase that “frames” the story, reports The New York Times:

 

The economy is formally in a recession, as the National Bureau of Economic Research and President Bush said last week. But the current crisis lacks a capital-letter name.

 

Then again, the Great Depression did not become “great” immediately, and World War I wasn’t known as No. 1 at the time. While the “economic crisis” - a term often used by journalists - has also been called the “credit crunch” and the “Wall Street crisis,” it remains the rare major news event without a defining logo, one that crystallizes attention and acts as shorthand for reporters.

 

“When you’re in the middle of something, it’s hard to brand it,” the NBC anchor Brian Williams remarked last month in a blog post. …

 

“The news always feels the need to name everything,” Jonathan Wald, the senior vice president for business news at CNBC, said. “If it’s not branded, it doesn’t exist in modern television.” …

 

That said, assigning a name and a logo to a news event runs the risk of devaluing it in the public’s mind. The propensity to name every potential scandal a “gate,” in an allusion to the Watergate break-in that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation, “tends to cheapen it,” Mr. Wald said.

 

“Branding” also reinforces journalistic herd mentality that undermines the search for a fresh angle or a contradictory storyline. For instance, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it’s intimidating for a journalist to report that global warming is a crock when 99 percent of his peers are reporting it as an established fact.

 

Editorial Note: CNBC’s Jonathan Wald noted India’s TV news reporters quickly labeled last month’s militant attacks in Mumbai as the “War on Mumbai” and “India’s 9/11.” In contrast, The New York Times twisted itself in knots trying to avoid labeling the perpetrators of the terrorist attack for what they were, according to the paper’s ombudsman, Clark Hoyt:

 

They were “militants,” “gunmen,” “attackers” and “assailants.” Their actions, which left bodies strewn in the city’s largest train station, five-star hotels, a Jewish center, a cafe and a hospital - were described as “coordinated terrorist attacks.” But the men themselves were not called terrorists. …

 

In the newsroom and at overseas bureaus, especially Jerusalem, there has been a lot of soul-searching about the terminology of terrorism. Editors and reporters have asked whether, to avoid the appearance of taking sides, the paper bends itself into a pretzel or risks appearing callous to abhorrent acts. …

 

Ilsa and Lisa Klinghoffer, whose father, Leon, was shot and thrown from a cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists in 1985, wrote a letter to the editor asking why The Times was referring to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the shadowy group that apparently orchestrated the Mumbai attacks, as a “militant group.” “When people kill innocent civilians for political gain, they should be called ‘terrorists,’ ” the sisters said.

 

Susan Chira, the foreign editor, said The Times may eventually put that label on Lashkar, but reporters are still trying to learn more about it. “Our instinct is to proceed with caution, not rushing to label any group with the word terrorist before we have a deeper understanding of its full dimensions,” she said.

 

† The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein urges business titans whose companies are teetering on the edge of insolvency to “[p]lease spare us the ‘perfect storm’ metaphor”:

 

It's hackneyed, for starters. It doesn't square with the facts. And for people who fancy themselves leaders, it's downright unbecoming.

 

The reason the perfect storm is such an appealing metaphor for these shipwrecked captains of industry is that it appears to let them off the hook. After all, who can blame you if the ship goes down in one of those freak, once-in-a-century storms that result when three weather systems collide? It's an act of nature that nobody could have predicted -- or so the story goes. …

 

The first thing to understand about the perfect-storm defense is that these guys actually buy into this nonsense. …

 

It's not that they don't see the excesses and dangers in front of them - how could they not? But somehow they convince themselves that the world has changed, that the old rules no longer apply or that, because of competitive pressure, they had no choice but to run with the herd.

 

† “The New Oxford American Dictionary” deemed “hypermiling” - to maximizing gas mileage by keeping tires properly inflated and making other fuel-saving adjustments to one's vehicle and driving habits - as its word of the year, reports CNNMoney.com. Meanwhile, the British were more whimsical in their choice of new words to include in the 30^th anniversary edition of the “Collins English Dictionary.” “Meh” – an utterance that expresses indifference or boredom - made the cut after “generating a surprising amount of enthusiasm among lexicographers,” reports The Associated Press:

 

The origins of "meh" are murky, but the term grew in popularity after being used in a 2001 episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer suggests a day trip to his children Bart and Lisa.

 

"They both just reply 'meh' and keep watching TV," said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries. …

 

Meh was selected by Collins after it asked people to submit words they use in conversation that are not in the dictionary.

 

Other suggestions included jargonaut, a fan of jargon; frenemy, an enemy disguised as a friend; and huggles, a hybrid of hugs and snuggles.

 

After reading Jack Shafer’s review of  Roy Blount Jr.’s “Alphabet Juice” (“his personal lexicon, usage manual, writers’ guidebook, etymological investigation and literary junk drawer”), The Stiletto imagines that he would love the word “meh”:

 

This alphabetically arranged book reads like a big bag of salty snacks: nibble five or six of its 500-plus entries and you’ll have to wolf the whole thing. …

 

A self-diagnosed hyperlexic since first grade, Blount hangs out in dictionaries the way other writers hang out in bars. … Both giddy and sober, as if ripped on Old Crow fortified with Adderall, Blount chases letters, words and phrases to their origins, and when stumped he ­hypothesizes. …

 

Why, he asks, do so many re­duplicative expressions or near-­reduplicative expressions start with “h” (“hill­billy,” “hippy-dippy,” “handy-dandy,” ­“hanky-panky,” “hocus-pocus,” “hoity-toity,” “hoodoo,” “hotsy-totsy,” “hully gully,” “humdrum,” “hurdy-gurdy”), beating out the runner-up, “w”? His answer:

 

“You will note that many of those ‘h’ expressions refer to disorder and jumblement. Most are of unknown origin. (No matter what you may have learned at your mother’s knee, ‘hunky-dory’ probably does not come from a street in Yokohama where sailors could find a bit of all right.) They’re the sort of expressions that people pull out of the air to convey something otherwise indefinable, like ‘whatchamajig.’ ” …

 

There’s no aspect of our language, written, spoken or grunted, that escapes Blount appraisal.

 

† Top honors in the Media Research Center’s Best Notable Quotables of 2008 for “Quote of the Year” goes to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for his orgasmic response to Barack Obama’s oratory skills: “I felt this thrill going up my leg!” Runner up: A “ridiculous” post-election Reuters headline: “Media bias largely unseen in U.S. presidential race.” This is the MRC’s 21^st annual awards for the Year’s Worst Reporting. This year’s winners were selected by a panel of 44 judges that included radio talk show hosts, magazine editors, columnists, editorial writers, and media observers.