It’s impossible to unsay a thing, which means Ann Coulter can’t take back what she said about President Obama and the rapper known as Flavor Flav, so the rest of us conservatives will now have to gird our loins and endure the slings and arrows sure to come our way.
What Coulter, a conservative author, columnist, pundit and gadfly, said was this, according to several news reports:
“Voters with 40 years of politically correct education are ecstatic to have the first black president. They just love the idea even if we did get Flavor Flav instead of Thomas Sowell.”
What Coulter said isn’t necessarily racist. In the best-case scenario, she can simply claim — with quite a bit of justification — that she was saying that compared with Sowell, a black conservative economist and columnist, Obama comes off like Flavor Flav.
I can’t say that I agree with Coulter’s assessment. I think Obama, like Sowell, has a keen mind. I don’t agree with much of what’s in Obama’s mind, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a keen one.
Intellectually, Obama and Sowell have more in common than Obama and Flavor Flav ever will have. And who is Flavor Flav?
In a former life, he was a member of a rap group called Public Enemy. The group was supposed to be a militant, Afrocentric one, and indeed many of its songs reflected that.
But Flavor Flav, with his grinning grills and huge clock dangling from his neck, always struck me as out of place in the group, a kind of buffoonish, clown figure reminiscent of the old “Amos ‘n’ Andy” days.
Flavor Flav should not be confused with Lil Jon, another rapper whose grills and buffoonish manner actually have me pining away for “Amos ‘n’ Andy” reruns.
Every time I see Lil Jon, I end up with my head in my hands asking myself the question, quite seriously, “Kingfish, where is you now dat you is really needed?”
I have to confess Flavor Flav isn’t quite that bad, but he’s bad enough. After Public Enemy went defunct, Flavor Flav ended up as a reality TV star on what might have been the worst reality show ever. And since we’re talking reality TV, that takes some doing.
The long story short of Coulter’s Obama-Flavor Flav comment will be this: She’ll be accused of making a racist statement about Obama. Then we’ll hear, once again, the litany of how all conservatives and Republicans — especially you Tea Party movement folks — are racists.
Coulter meant no racial insult, I’m sure, but that’s not how race-baiting liberals are going to play this one. But even if she did mean what she said as a racial insult, does that let liberals off the hook?
I’d love to read what some of them have said about Sowell. We’ve already seen and read some of the things they’ve said about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who seems to be their favorite whipping boy.
It’s time to rehash — once again, because this can never be repeated enough — the covers of two issues of Emerge magazine that ran years ago. The magazine, which is now defunct but targeted a black audience, ran a cover with Thomas on it — with a handkerchief tied around his head.
That was supposed to mean Thomas is an Uncle Tom, in case you didn’t get the message.
The other cover depicted Thomas as a lawn jockey — for the “far right.” I have it on good authority that those covers fronted some of the most popular issues of Emerge magazine.
If Thomas can be an “Uncle Tom” and a “lawn jockey,” why can’t Obama be a “Flavor Flav”?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
