Yeesh.

You have got to be kidding me.

No sooner had Tony Snow finished his first briefing as the president’s press secretary than Democratic activist and CNN contributor Donna Brazile was on the phone to April Ryan, who covers the White House for the Urban Radio Network.

In declining to discuss the NSA’s alleged collection of domestic phone records, Snow had said he wouldn’t “hug the tar baby” of commenting on a program the White House won’t confirm or deny. Brazile wanted it known that several people called her to complain about that reference to an American folk story about a trap that’s impossible to get out of — which has also been used as a racial slur. Ryan has obligingly filed a story about it.

Is our country – or at least members of the media (Dan Froomkin, I’m looking in your direction) – so ignorant that we don’t remember the stories about Br’er Rabbit? Have we completely gone blank about one of the greatest tricksters every to grace our folklore, the forerunner of Bugs Bunny?

Have we forgotten than Br’er Rabbit came to the Southern US from Africa, where he was known as Hare?

We also have apaprently forgotten that the “tar-baby” story is as old as any myth we have and comes to us not only from Africa but also from the American Southwest.

Then again, to assume that Tony Snow was using the meaning of the term that’s thousands of years old would be to allow that he’s not a racist babyeater whose shiveled soul allows him to flack for Chimpy McBushHitler. I prefer to think that Mr. Snow is a very educated man who has no problems weaving in references to childrens’ stories instead of someone too dumb to hold back a racist statement in front of a hostile press corps.

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Category: Oh, THAT liberal media.