I wasn't aware that "articulate" constituted some sort of racist smear, but apparently Oliver Willis writes his weblog to set us all straight. When I wrote that Michael Steele, Maryland's lieutenant governor, had that particular quality, it must have made Oliver rather angry. Paying a compliment to an African-American in his mind means that one assumes the rest of the population lacks the quality noted in the one.

Fortunately, here in the sane world, paying one person a compliment doesn't denigrate anyone else, because most of the people here understand that good qualities such as articulation don't amount to some strange zero-sum game. The rest of us recognize that when someone else gets complimented, only the small and terribly insecure believe it has anything to do with themselves and anyone else.

Politics has many inarticulate boobs in office and out; all one has to do to understand this is to tune into a Congressional hearing to find them. Last week, we had Ted Kennedy repeated clichés like "a hand up, not a hand out" ad nauseam and relying so badly on a script that he could not respond to answers to his own questions. Obviously, the blogosphere has its share as well.

Sobek skewers Oliver in this post.

UPDATE: Thank you, Jeff. I have never heard the word "articulate" used in any other context than complimentary, and quite frankly, I still fail to see the point of it as an insult.

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» Hating Whitey from Matt Margolis - Blog
Captain Ed can’t call a black man “Articulate” without being considered racist by ODub… I guess ODub has a full deck of race cards waiting to be played… ... [Read More]

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» You Just Need To Walk Away.... from All Things Beautiful
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Tracked on September 23, 2005 11:52 PM

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Tracked on September 24, 2005 3:43 AM

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