Friday, July 17, 2009

Unleavened Fischer Funny Falls Flat

I looked for some synonyms for "thin-skinned," to try to help old Kev out. He seems to have a tough time with analogy and metaphor. Remember the time he called the DNR, "gestapo-like?"

Anyway, Kev went looking for something that means "thin-skinned" and the best he could come up with (even though he was under no time pressure and had plenty of chance to think about what he might be saying) was this.
Commandment #1 (and this is really good, especially for those matzo-skinned
lefties) reads:
There you go. Matzo. That's the best he could do. What's the first thing that comes to your mind when Kevin uses the term, "matzo?" Think about it for a minute. I'll get you some more information.

The Free Dictionary defines "Matzo," as
matzo
Noun
pl matzos a large very thin biscuit of unleavened bread,
traditionally eaten by Jews during Passover [Hebrew matsāh]

Not much help there for Kevin, really. Is there? Maybe some synonyms might help.
bread, breadstuff, staff of
life
- food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised
with yeast or baking powder and then baked

Now I'm confused. What might Kevin have been trying to get across? That somehow liberals are The Staff of Life? A nice sentiment but one I hardly think the public employee holds.

He says he was just trying to say "Thin-skinned" and didn't have any idea that the Jewish connection might mean anything to anybody. Where have we heard that argument before?

What might Kevin have used in place of "thin-skinned," if, in fact, that was not appropriate to convey his intended meaning? Thesaurus.com offers up "Feisty."
Main Entry: feisty
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: spirited; touchy
Synonyms:
active, alive, bubbly, courageous, difficult, enthusiastic,
excitable,
fiery, frisky, full of pep, game, gritty,
gutsy, gutty, high-strung, hot-blooded,
lively,
mettlesome,
ornery, peppy, quarrelsome, scrappy, sensitive, spunky, thin-skinned, tough, truculent, zestful

or Fractious (note the distinction from Factious which might be better applied to Kevin and the Teabaggers {Hey, that's a great band name.})
Main Entry: fractious
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: grouchy,
cross
Synonyms:
awkward, captious,
crabby, disorderly, fretful, froward, huffy, indocile,
indomitable, intractable, irritable, mean, ornery*, peevish, perverse,
pettish,
petulant, querulous, recalcitrant,
refractory, restive, scrappy, snappish, testy, thin-skinned,
touchy,
uncompliant, undisciplined, unmanageable,
unruly, wayward, wild
Notes:
factious means addicted to forming parties and raise dissensions
in opposition to government or the common good, while fractious means tending to cause trouble or unruly or irritable.

The truth is that Kevin gets paid to deal in words. He claims to be an award-winning broadcaster of some sort. He blogs under his name and his employer's. He deals in constituent services for a state legislator. He uses his words for his living. If he tossed off "matzoh" from the top of his head when he thought of "liberal" then he's careless and sloppy at best. You could make a good case for it being a Freudian utterance, I suppose.

I don't know if he's a racist or not. This slip isn't the definitive utterance that tells us about Kevin. It is, however, one more data point to go with the casual Nazi references and the petty slanders that fall like rain from the heavens when he's writing. He had plenty of synonyms to pick from when he sat down to scribble that piece. It's one more unfortunate choice of words from a man who gets paid to represent all the people served by his employer and, by extension, all of us.

If this is "The Right View" of Wisconsin then Fischer and his ilk can have it. They'll have a tough time selling it to anyone else in this day and age.

1 comment:

  1. Whatever. His racism will just lead to, "Some people are just so sensitive" like non-apologies, where the onus is moved to the person noting the bigotry. We'll be seeing a lot more of it with this brand of "conservatism," really an attitude of aggrievement more than anything, in its death throes.

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