So there was consummate Manhattanite Matt Lauer, hectoring teary Paula Deen on stage. You could see the mixture of contempt and glee on his face: Contempt for this Southern hick who had actually admitted to saying *gasp!* the "n-word" in the past and glee that here was someone he was so obviously Better Than.
Matt, you go through an orgy of pearl-clutching there in the studio over Deen's admission, implying that your sophisticated lips are unsullied by its passage, and yet you were in high school when Blazing Saddles came out? N-word, please!
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33 comments:
If somebody doesn't ask that smarmy twit to swear under oath that he has never uttered the word, there ain't no justice north of the MD line. Oh, wait...
Lying into a camera lens is his job description.
Yep...If they could not find some one to lord there divinity over, life just would not be worth living.
Here is hoping for his early death.
I remember at one point Lauer asking Deen if there were other instances of racism that she hadn't shared, and I said to my sister, "Yeah, Matt, she has Klan robes in the closet, ask her about those, why dontcha?"
I'm waiting for him to give a rapper whose current oeuvre is full of the same word the same treatment. THAT would be news.
Creepy-ass cracker ain't got no sense nohow.
@Staghounds, He Could also have that conversation with Tarantino.
Who is Matt Lauer?
Let Matt Lauer have his fun.
However, I have no doubt there are chinks in his own armor, and his past may not be so spic and span as he might wish. Sorry, gotta keep it short: busy day, must be niggardly with my time.
Jess,
If you're not just being a smartass, then count yourself lucky.
He's a morning network douchebag.
Also, this. :p
if he wanted to be consistent he could ask the same of that old cracker Randy Newman
Mike_C: Win!
Joel, you keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Because at least in Florida, “creepy-ass crackah” has an entirely different meaning. It's almost a compliment.
“Rich cowboy history?” In FLORIDA? (Florida cattle barons are free to correct my errors of perception.)
And thank you again for watching these personages so the rest of us don't have to. Sometimes I think Elvis was 'way ahead of his time.
I wouldn't know Matt Lauer if I bumped into him (I refuse to watch morning shows), but from what I've been reading about him he sounds like a real asshole.
Well, Randy -- He's on the right side of God, so we can say Randy, rather than Mr. Newman, gets a pass because he's right thinking, and when it doesn't come to HIS income and sustenance, he's more than generous with that of others, so he's a good person.
Paula Deen is questionable because she cooks SOUTHERN food, all fatty and salty and bad in the official eye, and she probably votes (gasp) Republican!!! So no pass for her.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." He was strangely silent on the pettyness of minds that are unable to detect an inconsistency as is the case with Matt Lauer's mind. While I cannot say, as Jess did, "who is Matt Lauer", I can say I have not watched him in over 15 years. That is if he's who I think he is.
Rickn8or, there are a lot of cattle ranches around Cape Canaveral, some of them replete with cowboys who are Polynesian Hawaiian Mormons (ain't that a mouthful).
I have seen pictures of and read references about Matt Lauer, but I'm proud to say I have never actually seen the man on TV. I presume he's on at the same time as the Firefly reruns, or maybe one of the shooting or fishing shows on the Outdoor Channel.
Speaking of which, Jose Wejebe (from the OC's great fishing show Spanish Fly) just died. Now I'll never get to go bone fishing in the Keys with the best and funniest guide in the business.
The world is a smaller place, and Jose's passing has much more importance to me than anything Matt Lauer could ever do, except possibly his adopting Tam's idea about a Tokarev, a single round, and doing the right thing.
There are also plenty of cows up in the Florida Panhandle, and throught out the rural parts of the state, and even the metropolitan south. Google "Davie" or "Bergeron Rodeo" for one not far from Trayvonland. Granted, most of those case were more dairy than beef oriented in the South Florida area, but there were plenty of them right through the 1980s or later. Sen Graham (Bob of Florida, not Lindsay of South Sentimental) got his leg up in politics by being a member of a family which had a huge dairy farm business. IOW, he's a cattle baron.
Kishnevi
Joel: Aunt Jemima could call Lauer a "creepy-ass cracker" and instead of castigating for racism and reducing her to tears, he'd give his girly giggle...then suggest she try out for witness for the prosecution down here in Sanford.
Rickn8or: as with the n word, it's all about who's doing the name-calling and the context. As for cattle and cowboys, take a ride sometime from the west coast of Fla around Punta Gorda across the state through Arcadia (huge rodeo town) thence through Highlands County and down US 98 along the north shore of Lake Okeechobee and try to count the cattle...it is not for naught that route is officially designated "The Cracker Trail".
There is such a turnover in Liberal idols. What ever happened to Lenny Bruce -- y'know, a word is just a word? It's not a knife, not a gun, neither a stick nor a stone.
Someone's entitlement to offendedness ('zata word?) trumps my right to vocabulary, I guess.
Isn't Matt Lauer the girl who played Katie Fake-Smile's understudy for many years? If so, we know where she gets her (lack of) personality.
@Windy-Deen campaigned for 'Bama in '08, proving she's more of a socialist than a McCain Democrat.
What, pray tell, is an "ass cracker", and how does Juan go about determining if his particular specimen is or is not creepy?
Now y'all done gone and mentioned Randy Newman which brings to mind this song that (to recycle a phrase I got in trouble with Tam over) made me moist and runny during my relocation ordeal of 2012.
Nobody move, or the African-American gets it!
You know what is equally disturbing? The drooling-at-the-mouth stupidity that Deen has exhibited through this ordeal. After apologizing, she should have unceremoniously stepped from the lime light and walked away. She should have hopped a plane and flown to a Caribbean island for a few months, with her money and dignity (mostly) intact. Instead she fell into the media's favorite trap of being hauled out before the public on national TV and lynched viciously with her own past. All in the name of what? Preserving what's left of her lame-claim to fame? What ego-maniacs, both of them.
-Rob
Florida was the leading provider of beef to the Confederacy, after Texas. The cowboys of Florida were called "crackers" because of the stock whips that they used when rounding up cattle. Frederic Remington painted them.
Last I knew, there's still a commemorative cattle drive... Tampa to Ft. Pierce... The drive originally started in Ft. Pierce. The herd was sold to Cuban cattle buyers in Tampa. IIRC, that arrangement ended when Castro took over Cuba.
Bob,
Appreciate y'r Remington contribution. I wonder how those boy's great-grandsons and their kids are doing nowadays?
They're keeping busy apologizing for the racism of their ancestors. Stupid ancestors.
That's what I love about the Internets; somebody somewhere is an expert on just about any subject you can name. Thanks for the illumination people.
Just shows to go ya how little I know about Florida. But in my own defense, I've very little exposure to the place. Was there briefly in '72 when I learned to fold clothes strangely and learned new terms for everyday objects. (Orlando) Then again there in '87 where TPTB were semi-successful in stuffing my head full of arcane numbers associated words. (Corry Station)
I know some Nigerians who would shake their heads at all this and ask what the problem was.
And do not ask anyone who only speaks Spanish to call a kettle or anything else black.
Ed, or German which picks up almost the identical pronunciation.
Dunno about that. I was told by some very German Germans down south in Bavaria that negger was Bavarian-Deutsch for work horse, and so Ah-nold's last name Schwarzenegger meant black draft horse. Since English has "nag" for a work horse, a little digging showed this came from the Dutch word negge, so the old Bayernfolk may have been telling me the truth after all.
Die Schwarzen is German for da blacks. It's also Yiddish for that, and explains why Mel Brooks dressed as an Indian says "Schwartzes!" when he sees the sole black family in the covered wagon in Blazing Saddles.
Ah, didn't expect me to pivot that one back home, did you? Ye schwarzen of little faith.
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