Racial code words rear their ugly head?

January 10, 2008

I’ve been pretty familiar with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s work for quite some time, so I’m willing to extend some benefit of the doubt here, but this was certainly a poor choice of words.

A big Hillary Clinton supporter and statewide official in New York might have just given the Hillary campaign a real headache. During an appearance yesterday on talk radio — at almost the same time as Obama co-chair Jesse Jackson Jr. questioned Hillary’s tears — New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo used some words with a very troublesome racial history, apparently in reference to Barack Obama.

“It’s not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can’t buy your way into it,” Cuomo said, according to Albany Times Union reporter Rick Karlin. He then added, “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

Because the phrase “shuck and jive” has a racial background, Cuomo was speaking on Clinton’s behalf, and Obama is Clinton’s principal rival, the comments raised a few eyebrows.

Upon closer examination, this probably wasn’t Cuomo’s intended meaning. Albany-Times reporter Rick Karlin, who first reported Cuomo’s comments, told Tim Grieve that Cuomo’s “shuck and jive” remark was “so far removed, temporally and contextually, from any discussion of Obama,” that he didn’t hear it as a reference to Obama at all.

Fine. It sounded problematic, but Cuomo doesn’t have a history of using racially-loaded language, and the transcript seems to suggest he was talking about politics in general.

Karl Rove, on the other hand, is a different story.

Josh Marshall notes:

I’m probably not going to stun you by telling you that Karl Rove is using racial code words. But as long as we’re talking about Andrew Cuomo’s decision to stick his foot so far into his mouth that it’s coming out of his behind, you really must read Karl Rove’s piece on New Hampshire in today’s Journal oped page.

I’ll just pick out the highlights, but in the course of a single column Rove manages to flag Obama’s “trash talking”, “his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard”, and the alleged fact that “he is often lazy.”

It’s January. Obama’s five days as frontrunner are over, at least for the moment. So you can just imagine how dirty this is going to get.

I have to admit, I read Rove’s column this morning and didn’t pick up on this angle. I’m usually pretty sensitive to this, but I didn’t see it in my initial read.

I did pick up on the fact that Rove and Clinton are apparently sharing talking points — Rove, for example, emphasized Obama’s “present” votes, which is a bogus attack — and the notion that Turd Blossom would call anyone “lazy” given his work for a certain indolent president we all know struck me as spectacularly ironic, but I missed the racial overtones.

Here’s the piece. What do you think? (Not to poison the well, but I’m of the opinion that record counts. When someone with no background in racially-divisive politics makes a questionable comment, it’s easier to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. When it’s Rove, it’s far more difficult.)

I think that Rove would like for Hillary to be the nominee. It doesn’t surprise me to see him using racial stereotypes against Obama.

But not to worry. It’s just batting practice for the Republican smear machine. The regular season starts after the conventions.

  • “The regular season starts after the conventions.” – Okie

    Oh, a lot sooner than that. Just as soon as the Republican’ts get tired of tearing into each other and pick John McCain as their nominee.

    You can bet he won’t stand in the way of swiftboating and race baiting.

  • Can we stop this? Please?

    White people are allowed to say “shuck and jive”.

    White people.. EVEN ROVE.. is allowed to say “trash talking”, “basketball”, “lazy”.

    For God’s sake, stop it. SO many words have a racial history. If we are going to try to tiptoe around them for the next few months and freak out whenever someone slips, I might go insane.

    Stop it. Posts like this do no good.

  • Are we allowed to use the word “racial” because of it’s… well… you know, implications on the subject of…. erm.. well… I’m not really comfortable talking about any of this.

  • Tamalak is absolutely right– I made the same point with respect to the Biden “articulate” nonsense a few months ago. You can find a racial angle to just about any statement if you try hard enough, but that says more about the listener than the speaker in most instances. Parsing every word of criticism for the whiff of racism is exactly the kind of preoccupation with race that Obama is trying to transcend. So let’s follow his example, criticizing overt racism where we find it (which is pretty rare these days) and resisting the temptation to scrutinize every statement about Obama through the one-dimensional lens of race.

  • Count me in with the “sick of the constant parsing” crowd – not sure I can stand 10 more months of it.

  • i’m too lazy to use the shift key, much less read an article written by rove… and i happen to be white.

    but to pick up on a point i made in an earlier post, i hope obama supporters can steer clear of the race card (unlike the black professor who was on Hardball a day or so ago), because i think it can only serve to polarize and/or subvert the transcendent message obama is actually inspiring so many people with. his appeal is one of hope, bringing not only america together but even – dare we imagine – the world.

  • I’m giving them a pass. I don’t see anything that jumps out at me, but I suspect people will by hypersensitive to anything pertaining to race or gender for a bit.

    …his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard… -Rove

    I must be getting a totally different image in my head. I get a bunch of navy blue sweater vests and faux British accents mildly saying “Oh, Reginald, won’t you please pass me the gaming sphere, I am quite unopposed in relation to the scoring ring.” That’s probably due to years of Ivy League portrayal in the movies and my disdain for having gone to a measly Big 10 school.

  • CB, could you provide a link to something that shows that “Cuomo was speaking on Clinton’s behalf”? He’s not listed as being part of the campaign on her website, and the blog articles sound like he was invited to discuss Iowa and New Hampshire as a prominent Democrat, not as part of Senator Clinton’s campaign. Thanks 🙂

  • There are a lot more credible examples of GOP racism than “trash talking” – a phrase that EVERY WHITE GUY I know uses; references to pickup basketball — a common activity among all the white guys I know aged 20-50; or calling someone “lazy” — I know TONS of lazy white guys.

    When you make a mountain out of this molehill, it only provides ammunition to Republicans to call Liberals “politically correct Nazis” or “thought police”. There is plenty of actual evidence out there…you don’t need to stretch to make your point.

  • I doubt if this magnified comment has the racial overtones being suggested, If anything I think it dates Andy Cuomo as having stopped picking up new expressions in the 70’s. This seems to be more of a case of being at a loss for better words during an interview and pulling out a real loser. Given the audience and the forum, I doubt that there was anything to be gained by using such an out of date expression nor no one to pick up any dog whistle implication. It just makes Andy look bad.

    Rove’s using the word “lazy” in his context, medium and considering the audience is a loaded and intentional use of a word that folks wanting to read anything from him would understand the racial connotations in the way Karl wanted.

  • Why is okay to parse the words in reference to evangelicals (“vertical”, “Plessy v, Ferguson”) but when it comes to race it is suddenly all much ado about nothing? When a white politician scores a verbal blow at a political debate, is it ever described as trash talking? Did Biden ever describe any of his other Senate collegues as articulate? He is a US Senator, for God’s sake – isn’t the spoken word his stock in trade?

    When an announcer discusses two players with words like “works hard” and “blessed with talent” which one is the white player?

  • How do they keep up with all those code words? Does each group get a secret decoder ring out of a cereal box? In my experience people don’t even read columns and articles much less pick up their secret assignments from them. Political writing ain’t James Joyce stuff.

  • Please, can we let people talk without examining every word for possible connotations? Especially when we don’t even know the whole context? Twice now in the last week fairly innocuous comments were quoted in a truncated way (Clinton talking about LBJ, and now Andrew Cuomo), and a firestorm of racism accusations followed.

    Racism is appalling and despicable. It’s one of the worst traits a person can have, in my opinion. The flip side of this is you better be really certain before you call someone a racist, because it’s a taint that’s hard to remove.

    I’m not black, white, or Latino. My choice of language is an amalgamation of words I’ve heard from all the places I’ve lived, the movies I’ve seen, the music I listen to, the books I’ve read. I have no idea which of them came from where, and what their origins are. A lot of them probably are of ethnic origin. Let’s not always assume the worst about people.

    I can easily believe that Karl Rove meant things in a racially loaded way, but I play pickup basketball, and we use the word “”trash talk” all the time. It’s a phrase that everyone uses. Even people like me, whose ethnic group amounts to at most 2% of the population.

  • Wait… “trash talking” is racist against black people? Ooops: I’ll have to stop using it to refer to trailer park morons from now on; you know, the whole “white trash” thing. Or is black the new white now?

    I think it’s clear that overly sensitive listeners can infer racism at the drop of the hat over any word. That doesn’t make the speaker racist, it just makes the listener a PC nut.

  • P.S. I actually did play pickup basketball at Harvard. It was just the same as any other places, only the ball didn’t go into the basket quite as much.

  • I read that whole article, and for once I didn’t want to strangle the creep. Maybe he hit his head.

    I can tell he wants the race to tighten up, and he’s trying to sandbag Obama, who he sees as effective. So he accuses Obama of “trash talking”, which considering what he said is ludicrous. “You’re likable enough” is “trash talk”? On which basketball court? Maybe Karl needs to go watch a real basketball game sometime.

    But I kinda doubt if Rove is going to be dumb enough to play the race card, since the battleground voter is a moderate, not a “conservative”. Many moderates want Obama to succeed just so we can put the race card to bed once and for all.

    If any of Hillary’s people do it, it would be even dumber. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but I think over-reacting to stupid statements isn’t terribly helpful.

  • Seems someone is a little over sensitive. Would it have been any better if he had said waltz’ed?

  • Like CB, I think a person’s history is relevant, but even more I think the context is relevant. Cuomo wasn’t engaged in a hit – he was engaging in political analysis and proved that the occasionally less-than-ideal wording can run in families.

    Rove was involved in a negative attack. Racial or not, “lazy” was a cheap shot. Obama isn’t my first choice, but living in an early caucus state I can absolutely witness for Obama not being lazy.

  • Anything is possible. I think it is very useful to have this dialogue because it encourages open-mindedness and invites perspectives. Before you judge Rove’s motives, pure or poisonous, you have to decide whether or not he is calculating when he speaks. The same holds true for HRC’s tears and WJC’s hoarse rant’s. Do any of you have teenagers who are calculating? They are very keen on the words they speak when they want to have their way. If you have even an ounce of respect for the movement Obama has inspired in this country, you must acknowledge that his opponents only chance to defeat him is to calculate. Are any of you black? I am and it is important to me to know what Rove is saying because Hillary used his playbook (Scare the voters) in New Hampshire. Did any of you catch HRC’s “The Terrorists Will Test Obama On His First Day As President So Vote For Me Because I’m Ready” (paraphrased) speech? Since it worked in NH, do you think she is going to mail back to Rove his playbook? Of course not! Rove is feeding HRC, not to help HRC, but to help the GOP whose only chance to win in November is to keep Obama from becoming the Democrat’s nominee. What I see as clear as light is HRC’s current strategy is to, like Rove, speak not to the common sense in Americans, but to the common nonsense in Americans.

  • Just so us Obama supporters understand the rules ….

    !) Critics of Clinton may not mention any aspect of her personality or affectations that could be associated with her gender (e.g., becoming emotional).

    2) Supporters of Clinton may use innuendo and speech that speaks to Obama’s race. (e.g., did he deal drugs? he’s just a “kid” – read “boy” – he “shucks and jives.”)

    Oh – let’s not forget Sister Soljah.

    Now that the rules are clear ….

    The Clintons will stop at nothing to win. Nothing.

  • I’d be hesitant to accuse even Rove of being racist in code with that article. I agree that both context and history matter, and Rove definitely has a history of scraping the bottom of the barrel in his political life. But using racist code on purpose is usually reserved for propaganda aimed at the capital-r Republican faithful, not a more generalized, widely circulated op-ed.

    It’s understandable that people tend to be sensitive about racism, and I think that’s a good thing in general. But it can still be taken too far. If we get in the business of over-reacting to every little thing, then it will dilute the message when real racism rears its ugly head.

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  • “Did Biden ever describe any of his other Senate collegues as articulate?”
    I haven’t the foggiest idea, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? People call other people articluate every day, yet it never makes national headlines until the muckrakers decide to make a racial issue of it.

    “He is a US Senator, for God’s sake – isn’t the spoken word his stock in trade?”
    Since when is it a racial insult to be complimented on doing one’s job well? I’m a lawyer– spoken words are my “stock in trade,” too. Lawyers call other lawyers articulate, as a sincere compliment, all the time. I have both received and bestowed that praise on more than one occasion. I fail to see how it’s anything other than a compliment to Obama to say that he’s very good at the sorts of things that his job as a politician requires.

  • I’d go along with those who have suggested an unreasonable degree of parsing comments for racially loaded terms; I think it’s just as likely that journalists and suchlike have stopped taking note that one of the candidates is black – saving its historical value – as they should, and have forgotten to be careful of such things. I doubt they upset Obama very much, and he won’t make much of a uniter if he winces every time somebody says “watermelon”.

    However, I’m 100% with Okie that the GOP wants Hillary to be the nominee, and will do what it can to assist her campaign up to that point. They are afraid of Obama because of his runaway crossover popularity, and are well aware Clinton would be much easier to beat. I wouldn’t necessarily agree that would happen. I think Clinton would still beat any Republican nominee, but I don’t think she could hand them their ass the way Obama could, and I don’t think she’d make a better president than Obama. Her record speaks volumes, tears notwithstanding.

  • Would it have been any better if he had said waltz’ed? — Ronin, @20

    Jaysus, Ronin… Now you want to alienate all the Austrians? Even a master-less knight needs allies, you know 🙂

  • I’m loving the rationalizations on this thread.

    The media responds to Hillary’s emotional moment by questioning her “strength,” “national security credentials” and says she’s having “a meltdown.”

    EVERYONE understood that in that context, those words had a gender biased subtext.

    But Cuomo uses Shuck and Jive, and people start pretending like the issue is just the words, and not also the context in which they were spoken?

    At this point, If Clinton called Obama a “jungle bunny” I wouldn’t be surprised to hear people saying “what, I can’t say “jungle” or “bunny” anymore?” and “Look, I hear bunnies in the jungle are quite strong and persistent. I think the energizer bunny was originally based off of a species of rabbit that exists in the jungles of the Congo.”

    Stop making excuses just because a Democrat said it.

  • There is so much nonsence going on during these political campaigns. I think people are wasting time and a great deal of energy in finding faults when the circumstances don’t call for it.

  • Until today I did not know there were racial overtones to the expression. This is not the first time that an expression for me had no racial overtones had some. Perhaps some one should explain this to MR Coumo. We all make mistakes.

  • Barack won’t win because as per the comments in these responses… there are still great biases and bigotries against African Americans. The comments sound like the comments of the 1950’s of Segregationists, the comments of the Eugenists in the 1920’s and the Pro- Slavery elements of the 18th and 19th century. I know that many will be dismissive of the idea of racism and that is why racism continues… those who are bigoted, demonize anyone who my suggest racism might exist while continuing their same racist behavior. Barack’s sucess seems to anger and offend many of you. His mere presence and success seems to draw out the bigoted venom that lies beneath the American reality. Foes… the Clintons and Karl Rove, have become allies to put down the scourge of the dangerous Negro Silas, from D W Griffiths fairy tale… Birth of a Nation. Barack will lose…but the truth should be known…. Barack is ready for America…. but White America is not ready for Barack.

  • Do racist thoughts still persist? Of course. Are any of us completely free of them? Not likely. Are most of us genuinely trying, in spite of our biases, to judge people on the content of their character rather than their race, gender or religion? Absolutely.

    None of us is perfect, but on the whole we have come a long way. I firmly believe this country is ready to elect a woman or African American. In fact, I think it is highly likely that one or the other will be the next president.

    I am a white man married to a Native American woman. My best friend is a white man married to a woman whose parents are Belgian and African American. The woman I work with is African American, but her relatives have married people of Chinese, Latino, German and other backrgrounds.

    Quit parsing every turn of phrase. We have far more important things to focus on.

  • Fred, you clearly are not a regular, but rather someone who would drop in and make assumptions about an entire group of people on a small amount of data run through your narrow filter — a pretty good definition of bigoted thinking.

    And perhaps you should ask someone who actually knows something about civil rights, like John Lewis, about whether Bill Clinton is a “foe” of the black community and is trying to “put down the. . . Negro”

    You don’t do Obama any favors as a representative of his supporters when you come into a very supportive, progressive community of natural allies and haphazardly call us all racists. for all you know everyone one of us posting here is of a racial or ethnic or religious or disability or sexual orientation minority.

    But I guess it is hard to see much about others when your head is that far up your ass. The fact that we believe in looking at the totality of someone like Andrew Cuomo, or that we do not think every word spoken should be dissected under a microscope — which, by the way, are the only things I see about the Cuomo and Rove comments above; I see nothing that suggests support for actual racist speech (of course, you wouldn’t know what we said about Imus, since you just drop in to throw stones) — does not make us racists.

  • First, it’s in the WSJ on the OpEd pages. Second, it’s Karl Rove. Third, he’s trying to contrast the candidates–and “lazy” is not even in the context. What he did say was that Obama “has a reputation for being lazy”–in the same context as “trash-talking” and “playing pick-up basketball”. In my book, that’s not even subtle, not a dog-whistle. This is a blatant, full-bore racist comment, intended to make the target audience salivate. And he did not hesitate to snick in “Harvard”, which is a red flag to much of this bunch–they love to hire Harvard MBAs and law school grads, but otherwise see it as a bastion of liberalism.

    I don’t usually sit around trying to catch politically incorrect code words. Hell, I oppose political correctness at every opportunity. But, in this case, it’s not about political correctness. There are two possibilities–either Karl is getting completely careless and sloppy and just strung together this collection of comments by accident, or he is his slimy, deliberate self as usual, weighing every word before putting it on paper. Before you decide which scenario is more likely, tell me, what would it take for you to believe that the motivation was nefarious? A mention of “affirmative action” in the same sentence?

  • Politicians shuck and jive, and you know what? Few of them are black. Maybe if more of them were, we’ve have less shuck and jive and more go and do.

    Cuomo prolly could’ve used better language. But then again, he wasn’t talking about Obama and was merely adopting colorful language from New York.

  • Tre 22 said “…it is important to me to know what Rove is saying because Hillary used his playbook (Scare the voters) in New Hampshire. Did any of you catch HRC’s “The Terrorists Will Test Obama On His First Day As President So Vote For Me Because I’m Ready” (paraphrased) speech?”

    I agree. Another subtle theme for Hillary in debates and on the stump is her “change is about WORKING HARD” shtick. I used to think it was a lame argument, but now I think it may be a calculated racial slur, contrasting her hard work with the implied laziness of her opponent. She says it all the time – here’s one example in a debate – start at 1:30.

  • oh fer chrissakes op99 – now someone running for Presidency of the United States cannot even boast of being a hard worker (particular after Dubya sounded surprised in 2004 debates that “its hard work!”) without it being a racist? What next, if Hillary says she’s qualified it is really a racist statement because she is intentionally implying that blacks aren’t? What exactly is Hillary supposed to say in this campaign?

    Its pretty simple: when she says that, it is usually in the formulation that change is not something you hope for or demand, change comes through hard work. see, Obama is selling hope. Edwards is selling confrontation. Hillary is selling being a hard working manager type. Its what she has to offer, so thats what she says. Next you’ll tell me she’s also biased against Edwards because she is implying he doesn’t work as hard, either? Maybe she’s sexist, too?

    if you’re remotely serious, you are completely fucking nuts.

  • It is not only, to me, clearly racist code. It is blatant.

    I grew up in the South. And maybe that’s why I picked up on it right away. So much, in fact, that I literally gasped when I read it.

    Even for Turd Blossom himself, it was stunning to see it right there – in black and white. Not whispered. Written. And stunning that he was given the avenue to do it.

    I am sure of one thing. Southerners everywhere understood it, black or white. They live exposed to the underbelly of hidden meaning. They know the code.

    And, for Karl, well, the underbelly has always been his dominion.

  • In all this parsing that’s going on, didn’t anyone notice that the quote must be wrong? If it’s to make sense, Cuomo had to have said “You CAN shuck and jive at a press conference….”

  • I am disgusted at the bending over backwards to defend these statements. dNa said it best:

    “At this point, If Clinton called Obama a “jungle bunny” I wouldn’t be surprised to hear people saying “what, I can’t say “jungle” or “bunny” anymore?” and “Look, I hear bunnies in the jungle are quite strong and persistent. I think the energizer bunny was originally based off of a species of rabbit that exists in the jungles of the Congo.”

    Stop making excuses just because a Democrat said it.”

    This is the equivalent of saying that an Italian “greaseballed” his way to the Attorney General post. And you know what? 90% of Italians would find that offensive, and just because most non-Italians wouldn’t doesn’t mean the Italians are being “hypersensitive.” And it clearly doesn’t mean you should say it.

    Stop whining and take five seconds and look at it the directed persons perspective.

  • In the parlance of black rappers, nigger and bitch and ho get used. If a white person uses those words, it will always raise eyebrows. Always. An Irishman calling himself and his pals ‘micks’ is granted more leeway than the word used by a non-Irishman.

    I do understand that ‘shuck and jive’ was a critical word I believe to be coined by Blacks to describe BS artists, and it was once in such common usage that no eyebrows were raised…. so how we filter is a product of our individual experiences and eras.

    However…. people in public service SHOULD be expected to utilize the strictest of filters. And when someone like Cuomo – who is certainly not overtly racist – looses a word or phrase that does offend, common courtesy requires an apology.

    Every individual is not required to study language usage ad nauseum to maintain such strict filters. However, when we witness the fact that a number of people are offended, we shold be expected to note that and to adjust our own vocabularies – also out of courtesy.

    It’s like updating a computer. It can be annoying, but it’s a constant evolution done to keep things running smooth. A civil society is not a static thing. It’s an ongoing process. It doesn’t require guilt for an innocent, naive or unintended error. It only requires courtesy and civility.

    Change, offer a kind word to the offended and move forward.

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  • In a bigger sense I can’t see that there’s any point in code words in this election. Who doesn’t know that Obama is black, Hillary’s a woman, Romney’s a Mormon, Thompson’s a lazy-ass actor, McCain’s a former POW, and so on. Is there any point in hinting that Obama is black? My guess is that pig f*ckers that won’t vote for Barack because he’s black or Hills because she’s a woman had their minds made up long ago, say when their stepdaddies were beating them to sleep in their trailers as children. I just don’t see someone in the booth saying: “I like his stance on Iraq. But isn’t he the colored guy?”

    Still I wonder. What would happen if Obama toured the nation in a bus called the “Jive Talk Express?” Or Hillary rode the “Girl Talk Express?”

  • chrenson – i guess that means McCain’s bus being called the Straight Talk Express is really coded homophobia! 🙂

  • I think that if Obama gets the nomination, white America is finally going to come face to face with the monster that has been living under the surface for these many years. You are going to see and hear comments and commercials from the opponents that will make white people ashamed. Remember, we are talking about the most powerful position in the world and the GOP does not want to give it up so easily. What Rove and Clinton are saying will be considered harmless. Just watch.

  • “You don’t do Obama any favors as a representative of his supporters when you come into a very supportive, progressive community of natural allies and haphazardly call us all racists. for all you know everyone one of us posting here is of a racial or ethnic or religious or disability or sexual orientation minority.”

    That is a quote from an earlier comment.

    It was not applied to me or my earlier comment but I apologize for commenting on a site of natural allies, who I know not one thing about.

    Blame Google.

    And bye.

  • Just to get this one out of the way for Rove…

    “Osama Bin Laden will release a tape saying he is overjoyed that America is about to elect its first Muslim president and welcomes the beginning of the worldwide caliphate. Allah Akbar!”

    Sad part is, Osama might just do it in order to get the population to vote for a warlike Republican AGAIN and spend another 4 trillion fighting “the global war on terror.”

    Will America get a clue about reverse psychology THIS time?

    FWIW, Osama will endorse Hilary if she’s the winner and the simple-minded result will be the same.
    Just beating the weasel to the punch so maybe when the tape eventually comes out, we can ignore it this time and vote the way we want to, not the way idiots are trying to scare us into.

  • zeitgeist 41:

    Hillary is drawing a contrast between herself and her opponent(s). So if she’s claiming the “hard worker” mantle for herself, that implies she thinks she’s better in that area than her opponents.

    Now, other than Fred Thompson, is there any candidate on either side who isn’t hardworking? So holding yourself out as the hardest worker among a field where everyone is a hard worker is either a) lame-ass or b) calculated code. “Lame-ass” is certainly possible, but so is calculated code. See, that’s why I phrased it as “… I think it may be…” instead of “…it is…”

    Thanks for your ad hominem attack – so classy.

  • Forgive me if I missed points by skimming the comments. The “territory” for being critical of Barack Obama seems to dotted with land mines for potentially racially inflamatory speech. As I am a white woman, I do not suppose that I will be as attuned to it as others might be. My “language meter” will more likely recognize the digs aimed at Hillary. So, it is hard for me to know what the intentions of either Andrew Cuomo or Karl Rove were when they chose to use the words / phrases in question. The cynic in me puts nothing past either of them.

    But, I will say that Karl Rove’s use of the trash talking / pick up basketball imagery is the most troubling to me of the items under discussion (allowing that I feel disdain for Rove and only moderate suspicion of Cuomo). As someone else mentioned above, the imagery does not seem to fit the “crime.” I concur that responding that “you’re likable enough” does not seem to fit with my notion of “trash talking” in a a pick up basketball game – at Harvard or anywhere else. It sounded more like corporate sarcasm to me. Veiled insults seem more the specialty of the professional environment – not a basketball game. So, I puzzle over Rove’s use of – what feels to me – like incongruent imagery. At some level, it calls into question Obama’s “seriousness” and feeds of the narrative that Obama does not have enough experience for such a big job as that of being president. For those on the fence because they fear Obama is more sizzle than steak at this point in his career, this image (trash talking player of pick up basketball even while at Harvard) could reinforce those doubts. For those who consciously or subconsciously are not ready for a black man to be president there may be doubt validation in Rove’s remarks.

    I am tempted to conclude that this is all “over-think.” But, my perception of Rove as a 24/7 deliberate coniver enables me to imagine the worst.

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