Somewhere in the swirling whirlpool of pundit fantasy land, Obama walks into an Applebees, stairs dumbfounded at the salad bar with only romaine and iceberg lettuce and shouts
"Hey M@ther F-Fer Bring Me Some Arugula"
David Brooks and Bill O'Reilly need to get on the same page. Because on the one hand, Brooks says that Obama strikes him as the sort of guy who would be mystified by Applebees salad bar, apparently because he is hand fed by Nubian slaves and can't assemble his own appetizer. So Brooks is going with the "elitist" tag, pegging Obama as The Brother From Another Planet
Meanwhile O'Reilly sees all blacks as too savage to dine in public.
I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship." O’Reilly added: "There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’"
Indeed O'Reilly would probably expect Obama to try pulling weeds if he saw a salad bar.
And Glenn Beck also tackles the touchy race-class-and-arugula question....
Beck mocked Obama for asking Iowa farmers about arugula.
It would have been a total home run for the Senator if it weren't for the fact that there are no Whole Foods stores in Iowa and arugula is not even grown in the state.
Which would be a home run for Glenn except that arugula is grown in Iowa, sold in Iowa, and even eaten in Iowa, and in fact the people of Iowa do not subsist entirely on a diet of corn and corn byproducts.
I'm sure we have not seen the end of pundits trying to use food as a metaphor for race and class, but they are hindered by their lack of knowledge about everyday life.
Brooks doesn't know that Applebee's doesn't have salad bars.
O'Reilly doesn't know that black people can behave in a restaurant (I guess they aren't allowed in places he goes.)
Beck doesn't know that vegetables are grown in Iowa.
Anyway, I'm going to have some fried chicken, a juicy piece of watermelon, and maybe some nice kugel.