Republicans, Looking For a Winning Issue, Give Cooking Show Wardrobe a Try

Right-wing crackpot Michelle Malkin accuses zaftig television cook Rachel Ray of dressing like a terrorist and gets Dunkin' Donuts to take Ray's commercials off the air.

Comments

[fish]

Yes but what about the cheerleading video.....the cheerleading video!

I'm typing with one hand!

[Syd]

Rach does impart terrorism. But, it's in her voice and perkiness, not the table cloth she wore around her neck.

[Squidley]

Michelle Malkin is a "right-wing crackpot." Nice smear, Tom. And I suppose that Keith Olbermann is the mellifluous voices of reason and enlightenment?

BTW, did you actually read her article, or did you get the talking point from Kos?

[Tom]

I did read the article, Squid. I also read her book, In Defense of Internment. And I don't read Kos.

Does that mean I'm qualified to have an opinion?

If so, I'm sticking with right-wing crackpot.

[Squidley]

"And I don't read Kos."

Yet it's one of your "When I've Got a Moment" links.

I guess you don't understand why Michelle Malkin did what she did, and why it was the right thing to have done.

Oh, no wait--I get it! The problem is that she was being intolerant, and that is one of the worst things a person can do. Yes, she really shouldn't be intolerant of Islam or any symbol of Islam. After all, it's just a socio-political movement disguised as a religion, one whose adherents want to impose their barbaric ways on the whole world, whether we want them or not.

[Tom]

My problem with Malkin, in this case, has nothing to do with intolerance. It has entirely to do with irrelevance. Given her platform, she choses to expend her energy protesting insane, imagined implications of a cooking show host's neckwear. In serious times, I think serious people have better things to think about than that. Cooking show host neckwear, like invasions from outer space and allergies to radio waves, is in my opinion the realm of the crackpot. You obviously disagree, and see her scarf as a statement about Islam. I rest my case on the crackpot thing.

As for Kos being on my "When I Get a Moment" list, it's worth mentioning I don't get many moments these days. You will note that I haven't updated my reading list for a while, and that several of the links are to blogs that no longer exist. I don't read them regularly any more than I read Kos.

I sample a wide variety of political points of view. I regularly listen to Rush Limbaugh, for example, and have fairly regularly complimented Fox News. I'm not one who believes in ideological segregation.

[Squidley]

Well, it's nice that you're so catholic in your sources for information, and I commend you for that. However, you have already shown yourself to be insensitive to the value of symbolism, particularly regarding Obama's refusal to wear a flag pin. Not to flog a dead horse, but it only became an issue because Obama made it one. Yes, he could have gone the Manchurian Candidate route, but instead, he decided to make his hostility to America open--and the Democrats hopped right on that bandwagon.

But I digress. What effect do you think it has on not only us, but also our enemy, when they see our people adopting their symbols? I'd say that domestically, it normalizes an alien culture and serves as a subtle way to further chip away at our own civilization; for our enemy, it heartens them, encourages them to keep attacking us on every front--because they can see they're making progress against us.

That's why I commend Michelle Malkin for bringing this up, and why I'm happy Dunkin Donuts did the right thing. Minor? Yes. Important? Absolutely. It's a step in the right direction: away from Islam, which is incompatible with our culture, and back towards our own norms and values. It will be a long, hard slog, and there's no guarantee of success--but at least some of us can recognize when something is wrong and do something about it.

[Frank]

Just to add to this little controversy, there has been another dust about about the Keffiyeh. This time it was in Australia, and it was a Palestinian woman who complained because the person wearing it did so as a fashion statement instead of a political statement.

Which kind of proves the point the Michelle Malkin brought up in questioning whether Rachel Ray was wearing the Keffiyeh or not, doesn't it? Because it's nice to know who wears terrorists clothes as a fashion statement, and who's wearing them to support the terrorists.

[Rodger]

Last winter, my 12 year old and many of her friends starting wearing a scarf much like Ray's. Undoubtedly, that means some pop princess was widely photographed wearing one. It means zilch about politics.

[Squidley]

Yes, Rodger, that's correct--in one sense. I'm sure that your daughter and her tween friends have as much interest in politics as they do in, say, Korean Confucianism.

Consider for a moment the baggy, oversized clothes and loosely-laced shoes that have been so popular for the past several years: the hip-hop look. Did you know that that look has its origins in jail? To prevent suicides and garrotings, the incarcerated are sometimes deprived of their belts and shoelaces, which means that their clothes and shoes hang loosely. Now we see this bit of prision fashion spread out among the populace at large, legitimizing a look that comes from criminals.

Sure, the vast majority of people wearing baggy clothes have never seen the inside of a police station, much less a jail, and have no notion that their clothing style has its origins among criminals. Yet doesn't it say something when a fashion trend starts among people whose values are fundamentally opposed to those of the society at large?

In the same way, the scarf worn by terrorists like Arafat has become a symbol of support for the Arab refugees called "Palestinians." Even if the wearer is unaware of, or unconcerned with, any political ramifications, it's probably a bad thing to wear something that potentially identifies the wearer as sympathetic to suicide bombers and those who deny that Israel and Jews have a right to exist.