Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Good god. On the Ridiculous Overreaction Scale this one is an 11. The right wing blogosphere has its panties all bunched up over an ad for Dunkin Donuts with Rachael Ray in it, where she's wearing black and white scarf with a vague resemblance to the one Yasser Arafat wore on his head for so long. Little Green Footballs accuses Dunkin Donuts of "mainstreaming terrorism to sell donuts." Michelle Malkin says she's willing to give DD and Ray the benefit of the doubt - for now.
Jesus Christ, these are the same people who think Judas Priest encourages their fans to kill themselves backwards on their records and thinks Tinky Winky is gay. Get a grip. I doubt the perpetually vacuous Raechel Ray even knows who Arafat is, for crying out loud. May all these idiots drown in a vat of EVOO.
Comments
Is that a black-and-white check?
Then the number of terrorists at 16th and Georgetown yesterday was about 250,000.
Welcome Race Fans!
fusilier, who's been to the Speedway just once, in 30 years.
James 2:24
Posted by: fusilier | May 26, 2008 9:56 AM
Damn - guess my houndstooth sports jacket is out then! - :) DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 26, 2008 10:07 AM
Dunno Ed -
I read the MM link and she kinda...makes...sense....I mean, I went to wikipedia for the def of kaffiyeh and it says the kaff is a cloth square ("a scarf") that is typically white with black or red designs...wow! Think about it...all those women for years supporting Hamas...even my mother...and if you think RR is a ditz....damn. My mother's cover (pun intended) is blown....
Now I gotta cancel my wife's subscription to RR's mag...just in case she starts getting ideas too...
Of course, my family has slavic roots and slavs have this thing called a babushka.....
Posted by: Pineyman | May 26, 2008 10:09 AM
Let's see... "Little Green Footballs" has a green, black, and white football image for a logo... Green, black, and white are the traditional colors of choice for Islamic flags... Islam also favors crescents... Two crescents put together form a football shape... OMG!!! LGF IS MAINSTREAMING THE TERROR!!!
Posted by: jpf | May 26, 2008 10:11 AM
Hilariously, Meghan McCain has been caught in photos wearing one too.
Posted by: BG | May 26, 2008 10:32 AM
Is Malkin still writing?
I thought her career in punditry was over after she went after Graham Frost for his insidious, 9 year-old, left-wing political agenda on state medical insurance coverage.
Posted by: CHV | May 26, 2008 10:39 AM
The fact is that the kaffiyeh has lost its political charge due to trendiness. Yes, it's a traditional male Arab headdress and now worn by members of the US and UK military serving in the Arab world. But for a Westerner to wear a kaffiyeh - in the West - was usually (from the 70s to the immediate post-9/11 period) a fairly clear sign of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Look at photos of antiwar and even antiglobalization demonstrations. That symbolic association has been severely diluted by the appearance of the kaffiyeh in mainstream boutiques and catalogs, hence Rachael Ray and Meghan McCain. Johnson and Malkin ought to be applauding the kaffiyeh being further diluted and defused by being worn solely for its fashionable trendiness rather than sympathy with any cause it was once associated with in the West.
Posted by: Colugo | May 26, 2008 10:57 AM
I always suspected Dunkin Donuts of being a wacky left wing propaganda outlet...
Posted by: FutureMD | May 26, 2008 11:25 AM
you might correct the spelling of 'Raechel' in your post title. Not so bad buried in the post itself, once correct ..once incorrect, but in the title....
carry on.
Posted by: spelling nazi | May 26, 2008 12:14 PM
Anyone who has been to Dunkin' Donuts has surely noticed that this chain disproportionately hires Indians/South Asians as clerks. And anyone can see that Indians/South Asians look like Muslims (many, indeed, are Muslim). Therefore, Dunkin' Donuts is mainstreaming the terror, and anyone who patronizes this chain is likewise mainstreaming the terror.
(I, for one, will gladly mainstream the terror in exchange for some DD coffee. That's some good shit right there.)
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | May 26, 2008 12:45 PM
LGF is right, to a degree. She is wearing a very specific garment, not just 'black and white' and not just 'black and white check', but something with a very explicit political meaning. If you were to wear that in Israel it would be a pretty potent political statement.
I went to America and saw a girl wearing one and my initial reaction was 'Fuck, does she even know how strong a political statement she is making?' But then, there were a lot of Arabs and quite a few Israelis at my school, so these things were quite sensitive.
That said, of course it's totally meaningless in Western culture these days, and the idea that making a political symbol like that the subject of mainstream fashion does anything but weaken it to the point of complete meaninglesness is silly. They even make the things in red and green and god knows what other colours too.
But try wearing it in Gaza and see how they react.
Posted by: Matthew | May 26, 2008 12:47 PM
"I always suspected Dunkin Donuts of being a wacky left wing propaganda outlet..."
What should really bake your noodle is trying to figure out the conspiracy involving RR, Dunkin' Donuts, and the chain's owners the Carlyle Group .
Posted by: AME | May 26, 2008 12:53 PM
Haven't you people heard the latest? Unless your advertising portrays people eating giant legs of ham constantly, you're appeasing teh teharists.
Yes, even radio ads.
Posted by: tincture | May 26, 2008 1:34 PM
When my hair was shoulder length, that was a political statement! Now a male's long hair is long hair. Symbols are seldom static.
Posted by: Jim Spencer | May 26, 2008 3:18 PM
"Symbols are seldom static."
Exactly. Established hairstyle and apparel symbols of gangs, subcultures, and political movements are neutralized by mainstreaming and new ones are created or appropriated all the time. Gen Xers might remember when Doc Marten's became mall fashion (but you still have to be careful with the color of the laces). It's quite possible that the Burberry cap of chavs might have a similar fate. Puffy jackets went from upscale camping gear to hip hop uniform. How an item is worn also matters; a flannel shirt with just the top button closed is cholo but tied around the waist it was associated with hardcore punk.
Also, the West is going through one of its periodic "exotica chic" fads, in which clothing, furniture, foods and art associated with a nonwestern culture (or derivatives of these) become trendy. In the last century and a half there have been Egyptian, Japanese, Tibetan and other exotica fads. Due to 9/11 and the Iraq War this decade has seen an Arab/Muslim fad which designers have picked up on. Over the course of globalization the aesthetics and symbols of various cultures will continue to diffuse into and recombine with each other.
Posted by: Colugo | May 26, 2008 3:32 PM
This has to be the most loony tunes thing I've ever seen come out of the wingnut blogosphere. And that is, indeed, saying quite a bit.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | May 26, 2008 3:36 PM
I have to call Poe's law on this whole mess. Otherwise, I'll have to go on a homicidal rampage to purge the nation of ridiculous patriofascists.
Posted by: bullet | May 26, 2008 3:49 PM
LGF is right, to a degree. She is wearing a very specific garment, not just 'black and white' and not just 'black and white check',
But it isn't black and white check - it's black and white paisley! Are you really arguing that the mere fact of black and white patternness - even though it's a pattern from halfway across the Asian continent from the West Bank - really makes it political?
Posted by: Alex | May 26, 2008 4:08 PM
Alex, you're right - correcting my earlier remarks, it's not even a kaffiyeh (as this right wing blogger points out).
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/192813.php
Posted by: Colugo | May 26, 2008 4:17 PM
The comments on Colugo's link are hilarious.
Posted by: tincture | May 26, 2008 4:25 PM
"But it isn't black and white check - it's black and white paisley!"
Since when did reality make any difference to wingnuts?
Seriously, the comments that assume it is really a kaffiyeh just because.... Well I really can't quite figure out why they think a black and white silk scarf is a Palestinian symbol.
Kinda reminds me of the can of air freshener we pulled off the shelf after some idiot old lady thought a pink flower petal on the label looked like a penis. (I used to work in a grocery store)
Posted by: BaldApe | May 26, 2008 4:31 PM
Does she even wear on her head in the ads? Does that mean any black and white scarf is out?
Posted by: Lab Cat | May 26, 2008 5:48 PM
"May all these idiots drown in a vat of EVOO."
What's EVOO?
Posted by: daniel rotter | May 26, 2008 5:51 PM
So now she's a terrorist-appeasing hippie! Poor woman will never catch a break from the Loony Right.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | May 26, 2008 6:15 PM
Rachel wears a black and white scarf.
Tinky-Winky has a triangular antenna.
Having grown up (and suffered harassment for) wearing a Catholic school uniform, I'm entirely sick of discrimination based on clothing.
EVERYBODY NAKED. NOW!!!
Posted by: Patrick | May 26, 2008 6:37 PM
Especially Rachel.
Posted by: Patrick | May 26, 2008 6:39 PM
My wife is an actor and she's done many commercials. A stylist dresses the actors and make up and hair people take care of the rest. The people who do this are only concerned with what is going to work for the commercial.
Everything the actor wears is aimed toward complementing the effectiveness of the ad. I understand that Dunkin' Donuts has been trying to get away from the working class image and draw more up end customers. Maybe that's why the scarf - it's trendy.
The suggestion that Dunkin' Donuts had something to do with the choice of a particular clothing accessory is plain hillbilly dumb. The customer doesn't dress the actors. Just as idiotic is the suggestion that creatives at agencies like Hill Holiday are sending out special commands that the actors wear kaffiyehs.
A producer from the agency would have been at the shoot to handle logistics. Everyone involved, the director, the stylists, the producer wants the commercial to be effective. These people are pros who work their butts off in a highly competitive business. They're entrusted with a great deal of money, tight schedules and careers that are over in a heartbeat if they don't produce good work.
I'm sure they'll be freaking shortly about this (if they aren't already) at Dunkin' Donuts and the agency. With a great deal of money at stake, these people go out of their way to avoid problems like this.
It seems like every day we see some new example of malicious right-wing ignorance. Their viciousness does real harm to real people who are just trying to live their lives in a tough world. I don't know if there is any legal merit to doing so, but I'd love to see Dunkin' Donuts brings a very costly suit against Little Green Footballs.
Posted by: Dr X | May 26, 2008 8:03 PM
One other thing. As for slandering Rachael Ray, at $1M or so to make a commercial, plus the cost of the on-camera talent, the actor wears whatever the actor is told to wear. It's a job.
Posted by: Dr X | May 26, 2008 8:11 PM
Apparently Dunkin' Donuts has already pulled the add.
I say we all write Dunkin' Donuts and say we won't be back until we see the add again.
Posted by: BaldApe | May 26, 2008 8:45 PM
And yet nothing is made of the fact that it looks like she's standing outside the B'nai B'rith temple on the north side of Chicago? Don't those wingnuts do all thier research?
Posted by: Rev. AJB | May 26, 2008 9:13 PM
EVOO = Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Posted by: JMax | May 26, 2008 9:25 PM
note to rightwingnuts:
if you're gonna freak out about someone wearing a kaffiyeh, make sure that's actually what they're wearing...
*sigh*
Posted by: CanadianChick | May 26, 2008 10:12 PM
When I said I'd like to see a costly lawsuit against LGF, I was thinking about the Proctor and Gamble lawsuit over rumors about Satanic links to their logo. I assumed that ended years ago, but I see there were actually several lawsuits.
The company just won a $19M judgment against a group of Amway distributors who posted the rumor on a board back in the early 1990s. The defendants were stunned by the verdict:
Dunkin Donuts had to pull an ad that cost a lot of money to produce. It would be nice to see a few stunned right wing nutjobs.
Posted by: Dr x | May 26, 2008 11:56 PM
Wingnuts are too damn ignorant to know that, and are too proud of that ignorance to bother to find out.
Posted by: gwangung | May 27, 2008 1:08 AM
I have to say, their replacement advertisement isn't much better.
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2008/05/dunkin-wingnuts.html
Posted by: Sigmund | May 27, 2008 3:55 AM
Gwangung:
re: reichwingnuts. They don't suffer from ignorance, the revel in it.
Posted by: democommie | May 27, 2008 6:45 AM
I'll sign up for the pay-per-view celebrity deathmatch: Rachel in her scarf v. Michelle in her cheerleader outfit wrestling in a vat of EVOO. Bring it on!
Posted by: CJColucci | May 27, 2008 12:30 PM
I found a picture -- finally forced to actually click on the LGF link -- and WHAT? It's a goddamned SCARF, for God's sake, the sort of which I've seen DOZENS of times by the apparently terror-supporting fashionable women of Tokyo.
LGF is right, to a degree.
And you're on crack, to a much larger degree.
Posted by: Calton Bolick | May 28, 2008 1:52 AM