# Stupid Republican idea of the day
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 26, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897 "2009-03-26T18:48:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 249
### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4961 "2012-03-30T17:10:42Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> I don’t think it’s likely.
Ok, of you say it was a stumble, and also not a mispronunciation, what do you imagine he might have been trying to say?
---
### Author:  [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4962 "2012-03-30T17:18:08Z")
Oh a friend of mine (and avowed opponent of racism) said he may have simply lost his train of thought and uttered “neg” (as in “negative”), while trying to come up with another adjective. I mean he probably underwent the same [aversion therapy/speech training/operant conditioning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Atwater_on_the_Southern_Strategy) as every other Republican, right?
---
### Author:  [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4963 "2012-03-30T17:31:58Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> I don’t think it’s likely.
I think it very likely. In fact, I think it’s probable. So I guess we’ll agree to disagree.
---
### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4964 "2012-03-30T17:35:07Z")
I think it will be clear once the audio is cleaned up and the churchbell sound is removed. I suspect this will be the end of [Senator Johntorum’s career](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=upvZdVK913I#t=48s).
---
### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4965 "2012-03-30T18:35:08Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> Ok, of you say it was a stumble, and also not a mispronunciation, what do you imagine he might have been trying to say?
Throat warbler mangrove.
When I’m stumbling around for words, which I’m prone to do, I’m saying almost nonsense syllables as I try to get my brain and my mouth back in alignment. I’m not mispronouncing a word. If this never happens to you, well, you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about. But it does happen to me.
A short while before this, he said “Ovama.” I don’t think any of us would say that’s indicative of anything but a misfire, right? If we chose to (and I don’t, because he’s gross) listen to the rest of the speech, I bet there are other areas where he stumbles or mispronounces words. Everyone does it at times. He appears to be more prone to it than many.
---
### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4966 "2012-03-30T18:48:13Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> A short while before this, he said “Ovama.” I don’t think any of us would say that’s indicative of anything but a misfire, right? If we chose to (and I don’t, because he’s gross) listen to the rest of the speech, I bet there are other areas where he stumbles or mispronounces words. Everyone does it at times. He appears to be more prone to it than many.
I actually don’t disagree, even though I’m the one who posted the link. I think it’s at least 50/50 that he just made a nonsensical stumble and not a Freudian slip. I’m mainly just laughing because holy crap, if that was an innocent stumble it sure as hell didn’t sound good in context.
---
### Author:  [@FixMyIgnorance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FixMyIgnorance)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4967 "2012-03-30T18:53:06Z")
This reminds me a lot of the “Chink of the armor” thing back with Jeremy Lin. “Honest mistake, I swear!”
---
### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4968 "2012-03-30T19:05:46Z")
> [@Bosstone](#):
>
> I actually don’t disagree, even though I’m the one who posted the link. I think it’s at least 50/50 that he just made a nonsensical stumble and not a Freudian slip. I’m mainly just laughing because holy crap, if that was an innocent stumble it sure as hell didn’t sound good in context.
Well, sure. I’ll be the first to admit that I think anything that makes him look bad is funny. Against my better judgment, I listened to a little more of the speech. He’s a terrible speaker. He calls Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleefish “great governor and lieutenant governor Puh… Walker and and Kleebuh… and Kleefisch.”
---
### Author:  [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4969 "2012-03-30T19:45:57Z")
My kids were standing here fooling around with their baseball cards when I played the Santorum clip. My 8 year old looked at the screen and said, “Jeesh! Shut UP!” I, of course, admonished him for the language, but I had a little moment of inner pride.
---
### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4970 "2012-03-30T20:04:08Z")
Apparently, if a man takes off his jacket and puts on a hoodie in the middle of a televised speech, he becomes instantly unrecognizable and could be a threat to Congress, according to Rep. Allen West:
> [@](#):
>
> [Right now, the security folks there on the House floor are laughing about it, but initially, they did not know who it was. And hey were concerned that someone had just walked off the street, or you know, wondered off a tour group.](http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/03/30/455596/allen-west-bobby-rush/)
---
### Author:  [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4971 "2012-03-30T20:36:11Z")
"OMG, I can’t see Representative Rush anymore! He just disappeared! Poof! Gone, right in the middle of his speech!
Hey, where’d that guy in the hoodie come from? Do you think that guy in the hoodie did something to Representative Rush?"
---
### Author:  [@Baz744](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baz744)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4972 "2012-03-31T13:34:34Z")
“Government n **r" was the term used for “welfare queen” before the word "n** r” became unacceptable in polite company.
Citation: I’m old enough to remember it.
This was not an “accident.” This was a deliberate “gaffe,” which accomplishes two things for Santorum:
1. It gets liberals screaming that he’s a racist, which benefits him politically by building an image that he’s “persecuted” by the left. At the same time, he doesn’t take a major hit among independents, and the few non-racist conservatives, because they’re completely in denial about the right’s racism, and won’t believe he caught himself saying “n\*\*\*\*r.”
2. It signals to racist conservatives that he’s on their side. They know the term, and know very well what he was about to say, and they’re giddy about it.
I wasn’t sure after his “get blagh people off welfare” comment. But this is the second time it’s happened, and that’s pretty good evidence this is intentional.
---
### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4973 "2012-03-31T14:09:12Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> Apparently, if a man takes off his jacket and puts on a hoodie in the middle of a televised speech, he becomes instantly unrecognizable and could be a threat to Congress, according to Rep. Allen West:
Jeebus…you’d think Allen West would occasionally have the grace to be embarrassed to be the Kongressional Kaka Kaucus’s favorite kapo, wouldn’t you?
---
### Author:  [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4974 "2012-03-31T14:25:54Z")
This reminds me of the time that Al Qaeda guy referred to Obama as a ‘House Negro’. Gawd, that was _sooooo stupid_! Everybody knows Obama was in the _Senate_.
To avoid the same mixup, Santorum is using the more general term ‘government’. It shows that Republicans are getting smarter, but still have so far to go that you can’t really tell the difference.
---
### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4975 "2012-03-31T19:29:49Z")
> [@Baz744](#):
>
> “Government n **r" was the term used for “welfare queen” before the word "n** r” became unacceptable in polite company.
>
> Citation: I’m old enough to remember it.
We don’t have to take your word for it, either. There are plenty of instances of the use of the slur before the current Presidential campaign, in both the “welfare queen” sense and the “house nigger” sense: i.e., meaning either a shiftless recipient of government benefits or a servile lackey of government bureaucracy.
Exhibits include:
- Ted Joans’s [poem “The Nice Colored Man”](http://books.google.com/books?id=Mopdtw_QLTkC&pg=PT141&lpg=PT141&dq=%22government+nigger%22+-Obama+-Santorum&source=bl&ots=SjZdqA8SFV&sig=NmHo6MNmhHWuIH6gEkpodU5J5fk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mlN3T-naArO20QHsm8y_DQ&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22government%20nigger%22%20-Obama%20-Santorum&f=false) from the 1960s (“Uppity Nigger Middleclass Nigger Government Nigger” etc. etc.);
- [some racist asshole on a news comments page in 2007](http://www.vnnforum.com/archive/index.php/t-54591.html): “[…] I’ve seen just one government nigger breeding grounds complex […]”;
- [some other racist asshole on a news comments page in 2011](http://forum.encyclopediadramatica.se/threads/florida-teen-detained-by-tsa-for-design-on-her-purse.4911/): “I never been or plan on being on an airplane…due to the fact i’d probably rage hard and call anyone in TSA a useless government nigger”;
- [a fictional story web-published in 2006](http://eliasinfinity.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html):
> [@](#):
>
> “If I could be any more worried about our government I don’t know where I would be. They send your black ass over here to help deal with this shit and you proceed to have a Pow-Wow with the damned killers you’re supposed to be investigating! Please boy, please tell me you have an explanation for yourself!?”
>
> Guy’s mind cleared a bit and he looked at the floor. He did not dare meet the glowering stare of the Sheriff. […]
>
> The Sheriff’s words trailed off menacingly. He stood up and crossed over to Guy. Grabbing him by the arm he yanked him from his seat and dragged him over to the closed door across from the front, through and into a grim room.
>
> In the room were five covered forms on a long table. […]
>
> “This is what you are here about. You’re here to make sure no more of this happens. ’Cause believe me if anything like this happens again there is gonna be some real bloodshed! And ain’t no napping government nigger gonna be able to stop it!”
- [yet another racist asshole commenting on a wheelie-bike video on March 5, 2012](http://seovideos.albertawebservices.ca/video/F2T6ZsDispE/Wildout-Wheelie-Boyz-Black-Sundayz-Part-2.html): “how about you either ride you bike off road like a civilized nigger instead of makin yourself think your cool or just spend your government nigger checks more wisely and pay a light or water bill hell maybe even the rent who knows”;
- [and one last (I wish!) racist asshole posting on teh interwebs in 2010](http://downloadpolitics.com/showthread.php?3131-Pranknet-teases-some-nigger-woman-in-a-hotel/page2): “YES, white liberals and the strong majority of niggers would walk off a fucking bridge if they were told to by a government nigger…”
When I look at this sort of filth and realize that that’s the constituency that Santorum is trying to dog-whistle to, I cannot tell you how pleased it makes me feel to remember that his name has become inextricably attached to fecally contaminated byproducts of buttsex.
Except I worry that it’s not quite fair on fecally contaminated byproducts of buttsex, which actually seem rather appealing in comparison with Santorum himself.
---
### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4976 "2012-03-31T19:39:16Z")
Had Santorum only used a more neutral term like “porch monkey” there wouldn’t be any controversy.
---
### Author:  [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2012, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4977 "2012-03-31T23:20:46Z")
Yeah, I’m sure Kevin Smith would rush to his defence, they’re both Catholics.
As for “Ovama”: could be deindividuation, intended to sound like “vomit”?
---
### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2012, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4978 "2012-04-01T07:10:41Z")
> [@sugaree](#):
>
> "OMG, I can’t see Representative Rush anymore! He just disappeared! Poof! Gone, right in the middle of his speech!
>
> Hey, where’d that guy in the hoodie come from? Do you think that guy in the hoodie did something to Representative Rush?"
It would have been great if, just before putting on the hood, he said “I don’t know half of you, half as much as I would like, and I like less than half of you, half as much as you deserve”
---
### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4979 "2012-04-01T07:45:57Z")
The [Wall St. Journal](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312361540817878.html) has taken up Santorum’s anti-education cause:
> [@](#):
>
> BY PETER BERKOWITZ
>
> The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds. It also erodes the nation’s civic cohesion and its ability to preserve the institutions that undergird democracy in America.
>
> So argues “A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California,” a new report by the California Association of Scholars, a division of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). The report is addressed to the Regents of the University of California, which has ultimate responsibility for governing the UC system, but …
BTW, I’m afraid I may be violating SDMB rules by quoting this article in its entirety. (It does seem to stop in the middle of a clause, so perhaps I was too stupid to figure out where to click to read the rest of the article. Or, perhaps readers need to first prove they’re stupid before being allowed to read the article. :dubious: )
---
### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2012, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/4980 "2012-04-01T08:06:29Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> BTW, I’m afraid I may be violating SDMB rules by quoting this article in its entirety. (It does seem to stop in the middle of a clause, so perhaps I was too stupid to figure out where to click to read the rest of the article. Or, perhaps readers need to first prove they’re stupid before being allowed to read the article. :dubious: )
You’re not quoting the entirety.
Most _WSJ_ content is now behind a paywall. To read the whole article, you need to be a subscriber.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=248)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=250)