The other thing I really don’t understand about this is how Republicans calling someone “elite” is supposed to be an insult. Isn’t that what Republicanism promises? That if you work really hard, you will be rewarded? That rich people deserve their money and successful people deserve their success?
So then why for a Republican would calling someone an elitist be a bad thing?
Isn’t being able to rest assured that you’re better than everyone else the conservative goal?
Here’s the thing. Every single person on the planet can see this for what it is. Hobbs insulted a man’s wife. That man is now angry that his wife has been insulted and is defending her, because that’s what good husbands do for their wifes (and good spouses do for each other in general). This isn’t about Obama trying to control what everyone in the country is saying. This is about Obama being personally insulted by Hobbs’s deliberately insulting behavior. Hobbs’s continuing insistence that this willingness to stand up for his wife and defend her is a character flaw is now bordering on bizarre.
Is the TNGOP now saying that it’s a character flaw for a man to defend his wife? Aren’t they supposed to be the party of “traditional values”?
Listen, I have my disagreements with the conservatives in this state, but the men I know here place a high premium on honor and defending their loved ones. It seems to me that Hobbs has got a tiger by the tail here. He wants to play this like “Oh, look at Obama, that sissy elitist who thinks he can tell everyone what to do” but in order to do that, he’s chosen to attack a man’s wife and to belittle that man for sticking up for her.
I really don’t know many men in Tennessee who want to be associated with picking on a man for doing what many of them see as the right thing, the thing a man’s supposed to do when someone comes gunning for his wife.
I mean, honor is important here and Hobbs is straddling the line, if not crossing it, into impugning Obama’s honor. Folks might not like Obama, but I just can’t see that they want to be associated with someone who’s intentionally dishonoring Obama and then trying to act like he wasn’t trying to pick a fight and he can’t understand why everyone’s upset.
I mean, that just seems unseemly. You pick a fight, fight it. But to dishonor a man’s wife and then try to make it like there’s something wrong with him for being angry about it?
Just ain’t right.
That’s all I’m saying.
Saturday, I was listening to The Beaver, which is some radio station in the hinterlands and I was having a good time because they were playing songs I have no compunction about singing at the top of my lungs, even in front of strangers–“Family Tradition,” “Shut Up and Kiss Me,” “Forever and Ever, Amen,” and so on.
But the rest?
Oh, lord, I know it’s such a cliche to complain about country music, but listening to the radio right now about makes me want to kiss Miranda Lambert on the mouth. Because every other song you hear on the radio is about some dude discovering the wisdom of his parents and the way things used to be, usually because of the transformative love of a woman. Over and over and over again. The exact same damn song with slight variations.
It’s as if the rows of houses that are all the same, and no one seems to care, from “Pleasant Valley Sunday” became country’s playlist,
Well, thanks to William Howard Hobbs, it appears that the new phrase most closely associated with our state is going to be “Tennessee, lay off my wife.”
America, I swear, we are all not like this. Please, feel free to come visit. We have great cities and beautiful countryside to play in and, in general, we’re not going to make fun of your spouse when we hear you’re coming.
Seriously, this is mortifying. Funny, but mortifying.
I mean, can you campaign on this in the fall? “Vote Republican, We’re not Afraid to Take on the Candidates’ Spouses.” “Vote Republican, Because We Love America More Than Your Wife Does.” “Vote Republican and Help Teach Those Ungrateful Bitches a Lesson!” “Vote TNGOP and Get Made Fun of By the Whole Damn Country!”
The slogans write themselves.
(h/t Braisted)
Edited to Add: From 10:02 a.m. this morning.
So, yesterday, Hutchmo put me in his convertable (seriously, he was all like “I’ll come get you” and I was like “Oh, no need” and he insisted and then he pulled up and I laughed like a school girl) and drove me around his neck of the woods to look at Germantown, Salemtown, Hope Gardens, and Old Buena Vista and, of course, like everyone who goes over there is, I was instantly smitten and convinced that I needed to live in a big old house (or a new house designed to look like an old house) with a big front porch and sidewalks and neighbors who will drive me around in their convertables.
And, since it doesn’t appear that any of you are about to write me a check for $200,000 free and clear so that I can live in a new house designed to look like an old house or an old house that has been refurbished, I would have to buy an old house and refurbish it.
With no refurbishing skills.
Which, might be a problem, with the whole refurbishing bit being an integral part of my plan.
But, here’s my idea.
You are an out of work home builder, because the economy is so bad. I am a girl with good insurance. We get married and I put you on my insurance and you fix up either this house (which doesn’t have a porch, but you could fix that) or this house (which looks like it walked right out of my dreams) for me. If we learn to love each other, great. If not, when the house is done, we go our separate ways.
You must love dogs, tolerate cats, enjoy roust-about brothers, or in your case, brothers-in-law, and lazy women.
Inquire below.
Tiny Cat Pants 