Perhaps someone more fluent in faux-folksie Southern Congresscritterspeak can parse this out for me:
Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) on Obama: “I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation ["situation"? -Eds] that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”
Because sittin’ in my elitist, like, office chair, sippin’ a mildly bitter $3 cafe au lait in the fancy San Francisco Gay Bay Area, I can tell you it sounds a certain way. David Broder, help me to understand!
April 14, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Why, do you mean his use of the word ‘boy’ to speak of an African-American? I have to tell you, my gaze fairly jumped to the word.
Sounds a certain way to me, too.
April 14, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Imagine a statement like that from someone named for Jefferson Davis. Go figure.
April 14, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I also assumed he meant ’situation’. He’s trying to warn us that someone else is unqualified to do something, while he himself is unqualified to construct a sentence.
April 14, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Apparently, according to a commenter at Americablog, the “post-racial” thing to do is give Jefferson Davis the benefit of the doubt and assume he is 146 years old and so by comparison Obama is but a boy.
April 14, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I wouldn’t want to play “Balance of Power” with Obama either.
He looks like more of a Scrabble (TM) playin’ guy.
April 14, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Wow.
I was curious about this Ol’ Boy. Ole Geoff (isn’t that kinda French spellin – just sayin) has this “poll” question on his web site:
“How much will the average Kentucky family’s taxes go up in 2010 if the Democrat Majority’s plans to allow tax relief to expire are successful?”
Followed by various and sundry sweeping generalizations about the consequences of the “Democrat” Majority. Somebody needs to vote this sorry ass dipshit out of office.
April 14, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Ol’ Geoff was just angry because Obama kept saying “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?”
April 14, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Maybe … but being from near the area (southern IN), “boy” is used pretty much like “guy” in regional slang, especially by redneck types. Not that I want to extend the benefit of the doubt to a Republican, nor do I want to deny that there is a healthy dose of racism among a percentage of the population in the area, but still.
April 14, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Yeah, I noticed that too…but spelled ‘Geofferson’, it’s like the elitist version of Jefferson Davis.
April 14, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I’m not sure you’re supposed to say this about a congressmen, but switching words like “situation” and “simulation” makes me wonder…is he drunk?
April 14, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Sure it looks like that in print, but it misses the nuance of the spoken word.
If you listen, what you here is not a dog-whistle racial epithet, meant to demean Sen. Obama, but rather the concerned voice of Foghorn Leghorn advising young Egghead, Jr about what the red button’s for.
“Bwah, I said bwah! Thassa red button for blowin’ up the whole barnyard, don’t touch that, ya hee-uh!”
Fortunately, Sen. Davis keeps all his feathers numbered for just such an emergency.
April 14, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I’m not sure you’re supposed to say this about a congressmen, but switching words like “situation” and “simulation” makes me wonder…is he drunk? – Allison
AFAIK, he meant the word “simulation” — evidently Obama and others were involved in some simulation of some emergency situation and Obama did the “wrong” thing. Whatever that means.
April 14, 2008 at 3:39 pm
[...] goodness for The Editors transliteration. Else I would have been even more [...]
April 14, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Geofferson Davis (R-KY) is simply making the very conservative point that we should take great care in choosing a competent, intelligent, even-tempered and rational President.
Because he will have his finger on the Rapture button.
April 14, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Yes, he meant “simulation,” although it is unclear what he’s referring to.
April 14, 2008 at 4:33 pm
That’s got to be a stage name. Right? Right?
April 14, 2008 at 5:10 pm
[...] More from Memeorandum: The Caucus, Ben Smith’s Blogs, Right Wing Nut House (Suggests that this is going to affect the “bitter gaffe” will be interesting to see), QandO, Pandagon, The Raw Story, Balloon Juice (God I love John Cole’s snark. Had a good chuckle on his opening line), Political Radar, Political Punch (Check out Jake Tapper getting all kinds of steamed. Good for you JT), AMERICAblog and StephenBainbridge.com. Marc Ambinder, The Huffington Post, Pol Watchers, Perfunction, Blue Girl, Red State and Macsmind. American Street and The Poor Man Institute [...]
April 14, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Boy’s finger and simulation.
Do I have to draw you a map?
April 14, 2008 at 7:01 pm
If you listen, what you here is not a dog-whistle racial epithet, meant to demean Sen. Obama, but rather the concerned voice of Foghorn Leghorn
Which means he’s impersonating a senator.
April 14, 2008 at 7:05 pm
evidently Obama and others were involved in some simulation of some emergency situation and Obama did the “wrong” thing. Whatever that means.
This is a Kentucky Republican talking about foreign policy. Doing the “wrong” thing was probably not dropping the nukes on mecca.
April 14, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Irony alert: It was the Lincoln Day dinner.
And as a commenter at the polwatchers site points out:
He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a “highly classified, national security simulation” with Obama.
Doesn’t “highly classified” mean “not for yapping about at rubber chicken dinners”?
(Davis, incidentally, is three years older than Obama, so it’s not like he was calling him a little tyke. And he was born in Montreal, making him French AND Canadian.)
April 14, 2008 at 7:35 pm
“Typical white person” comment by a right-wing fascist. “Boy” = The N-word in this day and age and you can’t convince me this dumbass congressmen doesn’t know that.
April 14, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Any white Southerner, particularly any white Southerner born after WWII, knows EXACTLY what he means when he refers to a black man as “boy.” And that’s why white Southerners NEVER refer to black men as “boy” unless they are trying to pick a fight. Cong. Foghorn Leghorn there was not jest a-tryin’ to be all friendly-like.
April 14, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Davis was born in Montreal! Sacre bleu! No wonder he spells it the way he does. “Allo my friends, it is that I call myself Geoff!”
April 14, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Squidbillies vote in danger. Must send funyons,
April 15, 2008 at 2:25 am
Turns out that “Geoff Davis” is not his original, given name. He was born “Dirk Hugecock Strongman,” but after extensive scientific telephone polling, found that “Geoff Davis” would be a way more politically viable name in Kentucky, especially running as a Republican.
April 15, 2008 at 2:48 am
How many average families in Kentucky are millionaires anyway? Probably not very many, therefore, the average family’s taxes won’t go up at all.
April 15, 2008 at 3:38 am
I don’t know. Somehow, I’d feel compelled to vote for someone named Dirk Hugecock Strongman. Wouldn’t you?
April 15, 2008 at 8:36 am
Eh, I’m not sure about this one. _Addressing_ an adult as “boy,” would be a big problem…but a reference like this? No, I don’t think so. Loads of white rednecks are “good old boys.” I’ve been praised before with a “that boy can cook” as we gather around the backyard for barbecue and corn squeezins. I’m not saying Davis isn’t a knuckle-dragger who gets a chill every time he sees fresh white sheets on the bed in a hotel; I’m just not sure that this comment is a racial epithet. I’m guessing Davis would–and does–refer to white men as “boys” too.
April 15, 2008 at 9:20 am
Yeah I am sure that every year another dozen or so Congresscritters have to do THE SIMULATION where they are all taken down to a top secret bunker in West Virginia so they KNOW WHAT TO DO if the worst case scenario happens and the UNITED STATES of AMURKA is DECAPITATED in some shockinawe Nukeyular attack!!! And that boy fucked it up like it was the Kobayashi Maru all over agin!
April 15, 2008 at 9:41 am
[...] April 15, 2008 More meta than meta Posted by Sifu Tweety Fish under Uncategorized In what may go down in the annals of trolling as an achievement on par with Cantor’s work on cardinality, over at Yglesias’s blog a commenter who goes by “line” manages a concern troll about trolling on a post about a post about trolling on a post about a Congressman doing some — and this is the only description that fits, really — trolling of his own. [...]
April 15, 2008 at 10:11 am
Allison 10: …is he drunk?
Surely it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Craig 29: OK. I’ll believe that—but only if I see evidence of his referring to a white Republican of his own generation as “boy.” ‘Til then, it’s a gaffe by a racist dolt.
No, I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt. Why should I?
April 16, 2008 at 6:16 am
Loads of white rednecks are “good old boys.” I’ve been praised before with a “that boy can cook”
Yeah, I know just what you mean! It’s like when I hang out with my buddies, we call each other “asshole” all the time, like “Hey, that’s my beer, asshole!” or when they get in a good jibe, you say “Shut up, asshole!” It’s all in good fun. Somehow, my ex-boss didn’t understand that.