James Taranto, on why certain members of the Left keeps pointing at various non-racist statements and calling them secretly racist; and why certain members of the Right keeps snickering at the Left’s unintended self-revelation:
The thing we adore about these dog-whistle[*] kerfuffles is that the people who react to the whistle always assume it’s intended for somebody else. The whole point of the metaphor is that if you can hear the whistle, you’re the dog.
And not a wild dog, either.
Moe Lane
*Actually, Taranto describes the ‘dog whistle’ concept pretty well:
In politics, a dog whistle is a rhetorical device–an oral expression susceptible to two interpretations, one straightforward and one, metaphorically speaking, at a higher frequency. In his 2004 speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, John Kerry* asserted: “Let’s never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.” A platitude to the ordinary ear was an endorsement of same-sex marriage at 30 kilohertz.
I thought this was going to be about something like Marion Barry’s comments against Asian businesses and against Filipino nurses.
This is Newt’s skill, he should be sent out to mock the the libtards screaming about dog whistles
I once made this point in a TPM comment, back when I commented their from time to time. They didn’t get the irony that they were the only ones hearing the dog whistle. They just kept agreeing with my definitions that only racists heard the dog whistle and therefore anyone who heard the dog whistle was a racist. Right over their heads.