There is a Monty Python bit (and it may have been an album-only (for the youngsters in the audience, album were big black rounds things with holes in the middle that one played on an odd device that spun in circles) one), in which a fellow is ranting on about communists everywhere. He can’t take a bath without six or seven communists jumping in with him and Koysgin was in the kitchen eating his wife’s jam. Brehznev may have been in their with him as well, I can’t recall and I cannot find a transcript of the thing online (curse you Google!). I do distinctly recall, however, that there were communists peeping out his wife’s blouse at him.
At any rate, I think of this bit practically every time I have an encounter with the paranoid rantings of Michelle Malkin. Examples include seeing capitulation to terrorists by the UN because they used Legos in a poster. Then she sees the Reconquista because the Texas Rangers wore “Los Rangers” jerseys on Cinco de Mayo a few years ago. ((Good thing she missed the Spurs-Suns game this year when the Spurs wore “Los Spurs” jerseys!))
Now she is seeing terrorist capitulation because Rachel Ray wore a black and white scarf in a Dukin’ Donuts ad. No, seriously. Malkin doesn’t see a black and white scarf, she sees “hate couture” and “jihadi chic.” Today she writes:
Anti-American fashion designers abroad and at home have mainstreamed and adapted the scarves as generic pro-Palestinian jihad or anti-war statements. Yet many folks out there remain completely oblivious to the apparel’s violent symbolism and anti-Israel overtones.
Or, just as a flagpole is often just a flagpole, so, too, is a black and white scarf just a black and white scarf.
Charles Johnson (amongst others) was all over the story as well. The title of his post on the subject was “Mainstreaming Terrorism to Sell Donuts.”
The terrorists have won. Or maybe we’ve just gone collectively insane.
Perhaps not all of us, but clearly some of us.
I noted the story the other day over at Arms and Influence, but never got around to commenting on it, but then today I see that Malkin isn’t the only one seeing terrorists jumping in the bathtubs and peeping out of blouses, because Dunkin’ Donuts pulled the ad. Via the BoGlo:
Said the suits in a statement: ‘‘In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.’’
Really, the paranoia here is remarkable.
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