Talking Points Memo suggested Tuesday afternoon that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had used the word “retarded” as a slur, even though the 2016 Republican presidential candidate used it differently.
“We should not have a multicultural society. When you create pockets of isolation, and in some cases, the assimilation process has been retarded, it’s wrong. It limits people’s aspirations,” Bush said, obviously not meaning for the term to be taken as a slur against the disabled.
He added, “We’re creeping toward multiculturalism, and that’s the wrong approach.”
For Talking Points Memo’s Katherine Krueger, however, Bush’s choice of words was itself a news event.
“Jeb: A ‘Multicultural’ Society May Lead To ‘Retarded’ Assimilation,” read the site’s headline.
The story’s opening paragraph also underscored the former governor’s use of “retarded.” The TPM article is based on a video produced by the pro-Democratic super PAC American Bridge.
The left-wing website wasted no time promoting the report. The group’s editor-in-chief, Josh Marshall, added on social media that someone needs to “end this.”
Only a small handful of like-minded readers, including Jeet Heer of Chris Hughes’ New Republic, saw the story as legitimate news item.
“If I were a member of the Bush family I’d avoid the word ‘retarded,'” he said on social media, suggesting himself that members of the Bush family are mentally disabled.
Conservative media figures were less than impressed with TPM’s hot scoop, and they criticized Krueger’s article accordingly.
“All partisanship aside: Are there really pro writers out there who don’t know that “‘retarded’ has a non-slur meaning?” asked Hot Air’s Allahpundit.
The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway added of the story’s headline, “Is there a reason for scare quoting ‘retarded’ when it has a perfectly valid use here?”
“We’re now in ‘Jeb Bush didn’t say anything offensive but we can interpret it that way if we want, thus it is wrong’ territory,” the Washington Free Beacon’s David Rutz said.
After a number of left-leaning commentators, including MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim, came out Tuesday afternoon to note that the TPM article was an intentionally misleading characterization of Bush’s remarks, Heer eventually backed off from his original analysis of the story.
“Many conservatives on my timeline are defending Jeb Bush’s use of the word ‘retarded’ here,” he said in a lengthy Twitter rant that teetered back-and-forth between apology and self-defense. “This brings up a point about political language that I’ve been meaning to make: that there are shades of connotations.”
“The defence [sic] of Jeb is that in a dictionary sense he said nothing offensive: he meant ‘retarded’ as in ‘slower,'” he added.
Referring to controversial comments made by real estate mogul Donald Trump, Heer said, “This applies also to Trump’s notorious Mexican rapist speech. Did he say ‘they are rapists’ or ‘their rapists’?”
“In Trump’s case, simply throwing Mexican and rapists in the same sentence carried a more powerful connotation than either word choice,” he wrote. “In Bush case, I’m leery of Bush using otherwise acceptable word because it comes in context of polemic, so feels charged.”
He continued in this vein for quite some time, until writing eventually, “So: apologies for both mis-interpreting Jeb’s words and also for making a juvenile joke based on that misinterpretation.”
That TPM’s editors attempted to portray Bush’s use of “retarded” as a slur is interesting given that the site’s editor-in-chief has in the past used the exact same term with the exact same meaning.
“[Y]ou can’t ding President Obama for not more aggressively pushing a plan while ignoring the elephant in the room: the Republicans refusal not only to do anything on job creation but insisting on policies the inevitable outcome of which is to retard job creation,” Marshall wrote in 2011.
And on the topic of belittling those with disabilities, it’s worth noting that a post that appeared on TPM’s blog in 2009 actually went to great lengths to downplay furor over President Obama joking that he bowled like he was in the Special Olympics.
“So there you have it. Be prepared for self-righteous indignation that Obama made a joke about handicapped kids. The horror,” the post read.
“I’m ready to give him a pass, I’m sure we’ll get a heartfelt apology pretty soon, but the wingnuts, who have been busy cutting back the very programs that help the physically and mentally challenged, will, of course, have a field day with this,” it added.
