At Reason's Hit and Run, Jesse Walker nails CNN analysit Jeff Greenfield for this silly statement:
"For weeks Republicans have been saying, 'Do you really want Charlie Rangel of New York running the Ways and Means Committee, which does taxes? Do you really want John Conyers at the Judiciary Committee? Do you want Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco?'--a code word that has a pretty clear meaning of 'extreme liberal.'"
Uh, no, Jeff. That's not what "San Francisco" is a code word for. It's a code word for "gay".
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Update: My praise for Charlie Rangel in this post was, sadly, premature. Politico is now reporting that Rangel has gotten behind a 91% tax bracket for AIG bonuses.
When it comes to the AIG bonuses, I'm about as angry as any other taxpayer who has been paying attention. This morning, I was…
Nick Gillespie from Reason's Hit and Run blog has an interesting post about the hullaballoo surrounding John Kerry's military service and he finishes with this statement:
You've got to hand it to the Democrats. They enter a presidential race against a guy who clearly worked to evade active service…
Neil Sinhababu writes:
It's good to see Nancy Pelosi get some positive coverage. I wish the article went into more detail on what's probably the grandest achievement of her political career to date -- holding the Democratic caucus together to destroy Bush's Social Security Privatization initiative…
DarkSyde interviews the new chairman of the House Science Committee's subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. Chris Mooney rejoices in Henry Waxman's scheduled hearing on abuse of federal climate scientists. Nancy Pelosi proposes a select committee on climate change and energy independence.…
I think in the mind of the far right, "extreme liberal" and "gay" are in the same basket.
Depends on the context, dunnit? Don't think Greenfield's off the mark here. I don't think gays own 100% of the connotations of "San Francisco."
Certainly to me "San Francisco representative" = "probably quite liberal."
OPK
That's not what "San Francisco" is a code word for. It's a code word for "gay".
Yup. Just like "New York Banker" is (or at least was) a code word for "Jew."
It's amusing the variety of code words that Republicans and racists (maybe I'm being redundant) use.
Here's a question for you.
I agree with Brayton's assertion that "San Francisco" is code for "gay," but it also used to mean "liberal" quite often. They do go together for, I would say, most Republicans.
My question is - since I live in Texas and was only out of the state for one election - do people and politicians in other parts of the country ever talk about "Texas Republicans" or "Tuscaloosa conservatives" like the Republicans talk about San Francisco or California or "Massachusetts liberals?" I never hear about it. And it always bothers me that the Republicans have no real trouble cutting out whole states and using them as dirty labels like that.
CS
Captain Sunshine,
As a life-long resident of Nevada and a registered Democrat, I do take some perverse pleasure in thinking of "PRC" as the "People's Republic of California." I can't say I have any similar thoughts about Texas except when I see a Texas license plate on some pickup truck being driven especially badly. It's the same thing with minivans carrying Utah plates.
San Francisco is not just just known for being more gay friendly than most other cities. It is also a hotbed of left wing (socialist) politics. So from a conservative perspective it isn't just about the gay thing.
As a Berkeley resident who listens to a certain amount of Fox news for yuks and monitoring purposes, I have to say that my impression is that "San Francisco liberal" is in fact code for "way the frak out there, far, far, far, left, so far left we don't even have to take these people seriously." I think support of gay rights is just a part of that bigger definition. Believe it or not, these guys can be dismissive of you even if you aren't gay.
San Francisco (and the People's Republic of Berkeley) are quite liberal. If I recall correctly, in the last presidential election, almost 80% voted for Kerry.California has a split personality in that the Central Valley, 80% voted for Bush.
Well it's certainly true that San Francisco is extremely liberal. More than that, they tend to be out there on the loopy fringe that loves to make grandiose but completely irrelevant statements. I've written before that the San Francisco local government may be the single most worthless governmental body in existence. Having said that, it's still one of my favorite cities and I'll be flying there in about 36 hours.
To conservative commentators, does the difference even matter?
I thought "San Francisco" was code for "a city in California."
And we all know what "California" is code for.
The state that contains "San Francisco"?
From Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:
The Cold Open [1.02]
[About being called Barbara Streisand-loving...]
Matt: Was she calling us Hollywood liberals or was she calling us gay?
Danny: It's a... pretty fine distinction.
We all knew that eventually, the Republicans would have so many "code words" that they'd even start to forget the "meaning" of them.
Captain Sunshine -
No. If it wern't for Molly Ivans it might be a closer thing, but few people I know equate Texan with conservative, in nearly the same way people oft equate SF with liberal queers.