tuffy and racial immunity

this column by kathleen parker, whom i often admire, goes for a straight endorsement of a completely wack position. so, there's nothing really wrong with clowns ridiculing political leaders, on her account. obviously, it's constitutionally protected and more or less harmless. that's true unless the leader is black, in which case ridiculing him on any grounds or in any way is a horrible enactment of our long national nightmare. in other words we're going to immunize the most powerful person on earth from the effects of free speech because he's a member of an oppressed group. let's just say you're going to need to think this through again. you're going to need to see that the arsenal and the universal surveillance sort of outweigh the ways obama is being oppressed right now. you're going to need to see that this is an unbelievably racially condescending approach; the argument, i propose, is straight-up racist: these helpless victims need our coddling. so thorough is this condescension to every member of the black race that we'll be coddling the most powerful person in the world, helping to keep him safe from the criticism of rodeo clowns half a continent away. tell you what, let's find out about tuffy's life and then try to figure out who has it easier, who makes more money, who has more prestige, to whom the public attributes more credibility, who has more power, who has more privilege, and so on. continuing the argument, tuffy is entirely above criticism, because he doesn't have enough privilege.