As a connoisseur of Sarah Palin’s endless stream of word salad, I must admit that her latest expulsion may be my all-time favorite . Without a hint of irony, Palin praised the Arizonan crackdown on Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American culture by suggesting that President Obama doesn’t have the “cojones” that Governor Brewer of Arizona does have. Many questions arise from this proposed battle of gubernatorial vs. presidential gonads, but the first thing I wondered is if Palin would have the cojones to say “cojones” in Arizona, or if she’d worry about facing legal repercussions for her insinuation that anything of value, including Spanish slang for “testicles,” could possibly have arisen from Mexican immigration.
Sure, saying “cojones” is legal in Arizona now , as are eating salsa and rolling your Rs when custom dictates, but just give the Republican pendejos in the Arizona legislature some time. If they can get away with a ban on ethnic studies , they’re going to have their appetites whetted for more ways to use the strong arm of the law to make sure that no one questions the superiority of white-bread American culture uber alles .
As a Texas native, I must object not only to Palin’s use of the word “cojones”, but also her aggressive misuse of the term “bless her heart.” I realize the traditional passive-aggressive use of the term that comes so naturally to Southerners doesn’t fit into Palin’s aggressive-aggressive mouth, but that’s an argument for avoiding the phrase altogether. But with her usual belligerence, Palin brainlessly goes there, saying, “Jan Brewer, bless her heart, she’s gonna do all she can … .” To the ears of anyone from the South, injecting “bless her heart” before suggesting that someone is going to try really hard means that this person will invariably fail, due to the incompetence that has inspired the heart-blessing. A more traditional use of the term would be, “Sarah Palin, bless her heart, tries really hard to sound coherent, but can’t remember not to use the term ‘cojones’ when bashing Mexican immigration.”
Photograph of Sarah Palin by Darren Hauck/Getty Images.
