I wanted to write last night about Barack Obama’s huge win in the Dem. SC primary, but so many people were already doing so, I got caught up reading them, instead. There was such energy online, and it was every bit as satisfying to bask elsewhere.
What a triumph! But that was yesterday, and the wheels are already turning to the next phase.
Or maybe I should say that the spin already started — and it seems to have begun Friday, which is when I first saw this:
And as Senator Obama makes an effort to win black voters in South Carolina, he uses a word–bamboozle– that Malcolm X had been know to use.
As in this example from Malcolm X—
“You’ve been hoodwinked. You’ve been had. You’ve been took. You’ve been led astray, led amok. You’ve been bamboozled.”
Mr. Obama is paraphrasing Malcolm X to deny he is Muslim, and not saying anything, as far as I know, about how it would make no difference if he was Islamic.
ROFLMAO!!!!
My grandparents would have been stunned to learn that “bamboozle” is Malcolm X’s word. In fact, I’ve been known to sprinkle a bamboozle here and there in my own conversations over the years. Does that mean I’m channeling Malcolm X? Oh dear….
Silliness. Seriously.
But look! Now somebody else is going “there”:
Those are the classic words of Malcolm X. […]Where’s the other side of the story? The side that illustrates the African American candidate using words from a famous black leader to reach his own constituency in a more direct way; talking the language that they all know so well.
My emphasis — and here’s the translation: “Obama’s Using Secret Racist Code Words!!!” Do these people really think the word “bamboozle” belongs to a raving madman like Malcolm X? Have they seriously not heard it used by others, for generations?
Sure they have.
Myself, I think it’s a fairly pathetic (and wholly transparent) attempt to kick off a new meme — one that supports the post-SC game plan outlined by Dick Morris.
Because like all the other candidates, there are levels and levels to the Clinton’s campaign.
Of course, these not-so-subtle attempts to bamboozle gullible white people are only marginally less obvious than the Clinton campaign‘s own first clumsy forays, but they’ll get better with practice.
I’m sure of it.
Yuck.