Now, Let's Play "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

 

Having a hard time coming to any conclusion besides the obvious one about what Rich Lowry catches himself blurting out here pic.twitter.com/PFHQMCS8UP

— Madeline Peltz (@peltzmadeline) September 16, 2024

Now it's time to play the inciting new game show, "Do You Hear What I Hear?" where the contestants try to make out whether it's the word we are not supposed to say, or just a terrible, terrible slip of the soft palate. In our clip today, we have Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, on Megyn Kelly's show, which I guess is a thing, extremely butchering the word "migrants" or "immigrants" until it sounds like....

Well, you be the judge. 

OK, time's up, audience. So, as is the catch phrase of our show: "Did you hear what I hear?"

No. You actually don't need more time for this. I don't know what part of NR or Megyn Kelly or Rich Lowry confused you about whatever is "in their heart". The actual answer is--the reason people are hearing it isn't about whether it has been said out loud, it's about this dumb dance we are doing around immigration trying not to make it about---that, when we know damn good and well it is. 

You can actually not use that one word and still be saying that word more than you know. That's the  whole answer. We don't need a whole lot more episodes. 

So those of you who got the right answer here, you win a lifetime supply of the baggage of knowing about it, and for those you who didn't know, you get the parting gift of probably figuring it out but most likely not from this blogpost. 

Thanks for playing everybody! And let's meet again probably sooner than we think we should right here in the 21st century but apparently not!

UPDATE: Here's a bonus round, Christian supremacist edition:

Holy shit the drunken senator from Louisiana just told a Muslim woman testifying "You should hide your head in a bag"…..disgusting @SenJohnKennedy should be forced to resign! pic.twitter.com/KNtOP0BNBj

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) September 17, 2024

See, in a world, or rather, with a political party where US Senators can make statements that aren't even identifiable as "accidentally on-purpose" so much as "on purpose, on purpose" regarding matters like this, it is hard to give out "benefit of the doubt" points to anyone supporting the whole mess that is current GOP race-baiting and xenophobia. Especially when it results is displays like this:

The @NRO, January 2002: "Where's Waleed? The Case For Profiling" by @RichLowry.

I'm still here. pic.twitter.com/sGf7hE4X5z

— Waleed Shahid 🪬 (@_waleedshahid) May 8, 2024

The Senator profiled Ms. Berry on the basis of her beliefs and then added a slur directed at cultural garments worn by some Muslim women. This is what an apologetics for bigotry and marginalization looks like. He affiliated her with sympathy for terrorism and let us know the blatantly prejudiced basis for it with his comments. Not facts--just sheer bigotry. 

I approach the conservative permission slip with a long memory. It's not as new as Trumpism. It's only more naked and more loud, now.