The Return of Rhymes with Rich*

from James Wolcott's blog, Vanity Fair

Penn Jillette, the mouthy half of Penn & Teller (who with his long, lank locks resembles an angry mutation of Jeff Bridges' Dude in The Big Lebowski), has sure gotten a lot of mileage out of one slimy joke.

It's not even a joke, really, just a setup to a sarcastic, misogynist putdown payoff line ("...unfortunately for Hillary, there's no White Bitch Month"). Yet Jillette extracts prophetic meaning from the big reaction this putdown gets with audiences--proof that Hillary Clinton's candidacy is doomed--and a slew of pundits, hitherto not known for citing the comedy stylings of this libertarian blowhard, are all too happy to pass on the slur and link to it while not getting their own dainty little hands dirty. Michelle Malkin warns her squeamish readers about the joke's unsuitable language (no link) and Andrew Sullivan and K'Lo concede that it's offensive, which of course doesn't stop them from helping circulate it. But leave it to Maureen Dowd to deploy her special touch to convert a small beep into a pop-culture artifact:

In a webcast, prestidigitator Penn Jillette talks about a joke he has begun telling in his show. He thinks the thunderous reaction it gets from audiences shows that Hillary no longer has a shot.

The joke goes: "Obama is just creaming Hillary. You know, all these primaries, you know. And Hillary says it's not fair, because they're being held in February, and February is Black History Month. And unfortunately for Hillary, there's no White Bitch Month."

Of course, jokes like that--even Jillette admits it's offensive--are exactly what may give Hillary a shot. When the usually invulnerable Hillary seems vulnerable, many women, even ones who don't want her to win, cringe at the idea of seeing her publicly humiliated--again.

(Continued here.)