John Aloysius Farrell, blogging on the website of U.S. News & World Report, says he’s responsible for the care of a cousin with an intellectual disability and he’s not troubled by Rahm Emanuel’s use of the word “retarded” to describe Democrats who attack other Democrats. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has called on the president to fire Emanuel over the incident. An excerpt;

I’m disappointed to see Palin embracing this kind of political correctness. I thought that was the province of very silly liberals.

When he used the adjective “retarded,” Emanuel was not insulting or commenting about people with special needs. If he had been, then some sort of wrist slap or apology might be in order, as the noun “retard” has, at the request of advocates for the mentally disabled, been deemed too crude for general use, and retired to the closet of public discourse.

Emanuel, however, was not talking about people like my cousin. He was talking about Democrats, and castigating the kind of self-indulgent cannibalism that, too often, characterizes allegedly sound-minded liberals. Reaching for a word to convey the idiocy of such self-destructive political behavior, Emanuel summoned “retarded.” He might well have chosen “moronic” or “foolish” or “imbecilic.”

It was merely an apt metaphor.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 10:03 am and is filed under Obama administration, R-word, commentary, language, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.