Hullabaloo

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

 
Funny Business

by digby

That McCain is quite the jokester:

The blog Rum, Romanism and Rebellion pulls out a 1986 Tucson Citizen article recounting a joke about rape told by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Speaking to the National League of Cities and Towns in Washington, DC, McCain allegedly said:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, “Where is that marvelous ape?

”

McCain was swiftly criticized by women’s groups. A spokeswoman for NOW in Arizona said the organization’s members were “incensed by his cruel and sexist remark.” McCain said he did not “recall” telling the joke.

Is that really even a joke? Like his Texas fundraiser, Clayton Williams, maybe he just thinks that rape is something all women should enjoy.

McCain didn't exactly learn his lesson from that earlier flap. He went on to tell that truly crude and stupid "Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno" joke. Just this year he brought out big laughs with another sexist gem:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain took one look at a nursing school’s training mannequin and asked if the dummy’s name was Hillary.

Campaigning Thursday at the University of South Carolina Upstate nursing school, McCain couldn’t resist a swipe at Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"I was very glad to meet the dummy, named ‘Hillary,’" McCain said to laughter after a tour of the school. "Is that the name?"

It wasn’t. The dummy, or human simulator, doesn’t have a name.

I know that this kind of joking is fairly typical of frat houses and locker rooms and other all-male enclaves, but you'd think that a professional politician would understand that it's unacceptable to make these sorts of jokes in public. Even in 1986, that gorilla joke (even if it were funny) would have been out of line.

But McCain has always been handled with kid gloves by the press and so even when he calls his wife a cunt in front of reporters, they don't write about it. And I suspect that these sexist bon mots are among the comments the the boys on the Straight Talk Express have admittedly withheld from the voters over the years to protect him. It's all in good fun, right?

Except what kind of a politician says stuff like this in public in the first place? It's ridiculous. He's a 71 year old man who can't seem to control the things that come out of his mouth half the time. (In 1986 he was a tender 49!) I suppose he's been coddled by the machismo worshippers for so many years that he honestly doesn't think he has to. And maybe he doesn't.

But the Republicans had better keep their traps shut about civility and decency from now on because their standard bearer is a disgusting pig.


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digby 7/15/2008 06:00:00 PM |