This one’s got it all — allusions to slavery, a homoerotic subtext (even though everyone here is a super-manly hetero!):
Barbour offered a brief assessment of the Republican National Convention. “While I would love for [Chris] Christie to put a hot poker to Obama’s butt,” said Barbour of the RNC keynote speaker, “I thought he did what he was supposed to do.”
EconWatcher
That is just a very weird thing to say, and makes me glad that I have no idea what Haley Barbour does for fun on a Saturday night.
Violet
Just when you think they can’t get any worse. Disgusting.
Violet
For some reason I’m hearing the Deliverance banjos. I think they’re coming from Barbour’s front porch.
Gin & Tonic
Well, don’t know about you, but when I watch and listen to Haley Barbour, I never think “entitled racist scumbag.” So you must be adding subtext based on your own prejudices.
Linda Featheringill
In his dreams.
Republicans frequently talk about Obama in a “homoerotic subtext.”
I’m sure Freud could explain why they do this and why it frequently has such a violent tone. I personally think that at some level they’re pissed off because he’s just not available.
Thousands [millions?] of women across the country can sympathize, because he’s not available to them either. But they don’t have fantasies of violence. They might dream about how to get that smile, though.
tjmn
GOP “big tent” is truly just a pup tent.
Sterling
Phrasing!
MattF
Barbour’s the one who accused Dems of ‘playing the race card.’ So… well… y’know… He has a self-awareness issue.
Goblue72
C’mon now – Boss Hogg is just doing what Boss Hogg is expected to do.
jibeaux
@tjmn: Or maybe it’s big in the sense that it has a lot of fat fucks like Chris Christie and Haley Barbour in it.
Suffern ACE
As a gay man, I want to say that there is nothing actually gay or homoerotic or whatnot about the hot poker. Sometimes I wonder what exactly you straights think goes on when we pull down the shades.
PurpleGirl
Sorry Haley but as a resident of NYC whenever someone references something like what you describe I think of Abner Louima. You’re disgusting and it says more about YOUR pathetic psychopathology.
JPL
During a time of war should we really be talking about branding the President with a hot pok.e.r?
Roger Moore
@tjmn:
I’m not sure about that. A pup tent has two poles at opposite ends, while the Republican tent has one big pole sticking up under the bed sheets.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic:
When I see Haley Barbour I think, “Hey, look, somebody put a manatee in a suit and taught it to walk!”
EconWatcher
@PurpleGirl:
I hear you, but I’m left thinking of “the gimp” scene in Pulp Fiction. So who is Barbour–Maynard or Zed? Either way, Obama is going to get medieval….
Cacti
Isn’t the motto of every other state in the bottom quintile “Thank God for Mississippi”?
“Mr. Governor, we’re 49th in education and 2nd in teen pregnancy!”
“Well, thank God for Mississippi.”
Tom Levenson
DougJ @ top;
You forgot torture. The GOP’s ongoing lust for torture (and hence, I guess, an S-M fixation that is truly terrifying when manifested by those with power.
Mnemosyne
@PurpleGirl:
@EconWatcher:
I’m pretty sure Barbour is thinking more of this:
tjmn
@jibeaux: Those two need at least an eight-man tent.
LanceThruster
Old Fat Bastard knows he’s doing alright
Hear him whip the women just around midnight
tjmn
@Roger Moore: I wonder if the RNC handed out those little blue pills like candy at the convention?
chopper
@Roger Moore:
oh, it’s still a big tent. it has a wide stance and all.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And I think he’s so far in the closet, he’s almost into the next room.
J
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unfair to manatees!
rlrr
@Roger Moore:
He’s so far in the closet, he can see Narnia.
jrg
@JPL: No shit. I wonder how the media would have responded to a suggestion by a Democratic governor suggesting that a hot poker be shoved up Commander Codpiece’s ass.
eric
I have little doubt then when watching Roots, Haley Barbour shouted “Toby” each and every time, as if following along a college cheer!
quannlace
You should check out the ‘Saturday Hate Mail’ column over at Daily Kos.
Over half of them start with a ‘Hey, Obama, you can just suck…” and spins off into pure hormo-erotic porn. Sometimes these are directed at the Blog’s owner.
Either way , they’re astonishing in their gleeful salacious detail. Really makes you wonder…..
Roger Moore
@rlrr:
Technically, that would be a wardrobe, not a closet.
RP
“Roots” is my favorite movie too!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@tjmn: and apparently the GOP tent has been reduced to the boner they while thinking of Obama while in bed. Seesh Barbour, that really is a disgusting way to talk about another man.
Anya
There’s something seriously wrong with that man. He has the most disgusting rotten personality.
MomSense
Did he really make a branding reference?
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: That may be true but I’ll still hold against him that in my time context, Louima is who I get reminded of. (I know you think Barbour is as sick I think he is.)
scav
Don’t forget that King Edward II was (more in legend than probable fact) killed by having a red-hot poker thrust into his anus to disguise his murder. Might be a little high-falluting in-tell-ekt-u-el for some but was done up in plays by dead white guys so . . .
scav
Apparently bringing up the the details of the legendary killing of Edward II of England shocks WP. Consider it a high-falutin’ slightly possible refernce.
Dennis G.
Good to see that the old Nit Diddler is still diddling that nit…
Ann Rynd
There must be a way I can put Chuck Todd into the optics of this post. The hot poker is a racial image rather than sexual one, since it reflects ownership and branding and not anything anyone does for pleasure. Haley’s not into sexual denigration as far as I can tell. Can we have Chuck holding O’s arms while Christie is branding him? Graphically it works better for me.
Ann Rynd
Can someone educate me about what words put a comment into moderation. Ra*cial, se*xual, hot po*er????
Linda Featheringill
@Ann Rynd:
po*er. As in game of chance.
Suffern ACE
@Ann Rynd: P*ker. It’s a ca$eeno game.
Ann Rynd
@Linda Featheringill: [email protected]Suffern ACE: Ah, I get it. Thanks. I was just going on about how I wanted to fit Chuck Todd into the narrative of this thread since I’m having a big hate on for him today. The hateful little striver that he is.
hep kitty
@Violet: It always, always, always gets worse, every day, doesn’t it?
Creeps, freaks, closet gay homophobes, racist, r*pe and inc*st enthusiasts.
I guess you have to consider the source.
hep kitty
@Ann Rynd: Having that problem also with words that normally don’t trigger moderation, something must be wrong.
Geeno
@Suffern ACE: I think we get that impression due their constant usage of metaphors involving bending over, putting things up asses, and having things rammed down throats. There are plenty of other metaphors they could use, but they’re always, to a man, using the butt and throat centric ones.
patrick II
They walk among us.
Ron Thompson
I saw it as a reference to Edward II of England, who was deposed, and reputedly murdered by having a red hot poker thrust up his ass, so that there would be no visible mark of murder on his anointed body. Overthrow and murder the head of state, but don’t leave any tell-tale marks. Then we can start the Hundred Years War under his successor.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Talk about “getting medieval” on someone’s arse…
Ann Rynd
@Geeno: All of these images reflecting male terror of penitration and the the projection of that fear into a hatred of homosexuals. Thus: homophobia. But, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and anal penetration of a male by, say, a cop with a nightstick, is just violent assault and not rape.
LanceThruster
@jrg:
I have no doubt in my mind of Cheney having copies of torture porn of this and worse being done to Gitmo prisoners and others.
Villago Delenda Est
@hep kitty:
Oh, something is definitely wrong with FYWP.
J. Michael Neal
@J: Give the manatees credit. They kicked him out of their society, forcing the rest of us to deal with him.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
Barbour is clearly unhappy with the GOP’s inevitable status as a rump party.
(ok, ok, I’m done).
hep kitty
@J: But manatees are cute and lovable! Barbour has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Kathy in St. Louis
Haley, now Chris is going to be maaaad about that remark. You need to apologize. Maybe take him out for dinner. You two could hit the all you can eat buffet at Golden Corral and talk it over. You both appear to know where it is.
SectarianSofa
Clearly another parody, satirizing the … something, and we’re being trolled by Barbour.
RedKitten
Sexual or not, it does seem as though right-wingers have this weird fascination with the butt. Hell, get any of them talking about gay marriage, and invariably they will talk, at length, about the non-procreative features of anal sex. And they won’t just describe it as anal sex…oh no. These folks are DESCRIPTIVE.
M. Bouffant
“Liquor in the front,
Hot poker in the rear.”
Mnemosyne
@Ron Thompson:
It was in nutty conservative Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, so I’m pretty sure conservatives are familiar with the story.
scott consigny
Barbour’s comment is more than nasty– a quick google search of red-hot poker and “lynching” turns up the following—-
The story of lynching, then , is more than the simple fact of a black man or woman hanged by the neck. It is the story of slow, methodical, sadistic, often highly inventive forms of torture and mutilation. If executed by fire, it is the red-hot poker applied to the eyes and genitals and the stench of burning flesh, as the body slowly roasts over the flames and the blood sizzles in the heat.
There are other citations too– I’m sure shoving the red-hot poker up the Black man’s anus was quite common. The current Republicans are truly an amazing species.
encephalopath
A reference to Edward II, maybe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_II_(film)
Brachiator
@Ron Thompson: I agree about the Edward I references.
The Republicans are obsessed with the idea that they must depose a hated ruler. They are obsessed over questions of his legitimacy. They are strangling themselves over their inability to respect Obama and to recognize his legal authority.
They cannot contain their rage. It will consume them. The trick is preventing it from consuming the country as well.
Brachiator
Crap. Meant to write Edward II in prior post. Could not get back in to edit. The blog is misbehaving.
Barbara
@scav:
I knew someone would have the same thought I did. This image is almost too horrifying to actually imagine. I have to say that I am actually shocked that Barbour made this comment.
Elie
This is not a personal issue for Haley. He is just following the Romney campaign’s strategic approach to inflame white working class people, hopefully get an enraged response which inflames them more and keep the issue aflame. All with the goal of hitting that “magic number” proportion of the white vote that they MUST capture (since no other group is going to give them any votes). Its their only strategy. Period
John M. Burt
Not even Christopher Columbus could mistake Haley Barbour for a mermaid.