Single Stupidest Thing I’ve Read Today…
…although it’s just gone 2:30, so there’s time.
That monument to stupidity? This John Hinderaker quote in which he describes Douglas “Magic Johnson’s too black for me” Sterling thusly:
“[a] pathetic figure: a reverse image of Othello, a doddering old man with a young black mistress who cheats on him.”
Bad Shakespeare, bad simile, and a terrible argument (being old and pissed off means you get a get-out-of-racist-shit-free card?). The best (worst) of it for me, though, lies with entire conceit. Sterling-as-Othello (with a touch of Lear — that doddering bit) is at once tragic and heroic. Sterling as a vicious f**k who has merely committed the ultimate Kinsey gaffe, revealing the truth about himself that never quite escaped in court or from sealed settlements….that guy never seems to trouble the spotless sunshine of Mr. Hinderaker’s mind.
Seriously — this guy is taken, by some, as an exemplar of learned and rigorous right wing thought. Subtle bigotry of low expectations, I’m afraid.
Image Quentin Massys, An Allegory of Folly, early 16th c. And yeah, I’ve used this one before. Fits, doesn’t it?
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The Inverse Square Blog 
May 3, 2014 at 1:33 am
My theory, which is mine, is that AssMissile’s use of the word “pathetic” was the tell here. He’s tormented by the way Sterling’s voice caught as he begged his woman (!) to spare him the indignity of showing her face in public with “those people”, instead of being a real man and bravely smacking her around like a True Conservative Hero would have done.
May 4, 2014 at 6:09 am
So Hinderaker is a bit like a modern Iago then, except without the intelligence.