All (Asshole) Rights Reserved

In today's Howler, Bob Somerby notes that Chris Matthews deployed "a new technique" this Sunday:

Apparently, it’s now OK to offer sexist comments if you say you’re doing so in advance.

Somerby's noticed said technique at work in Tweety's question to Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Cynthia [Tucker], the question, I think, somewhere in the middle of this—and this may be sexist, I don't deny it, but—is the charge that she's calculating, that they're calculating together, a little too much planning.

Note to Bob Somerby: this is not a "new" technique. All Tweety was doing was reserving what Amanda Marcotte has dubbed Asshole Rights:

Apparently this guy was a firm believer in the concept of some sort of Asshole Rights, a special right granted only to self-declared assholes to be rude as they want to be and never get criticized for it. Which meant that in order to get a free pass to be rude whenever you want to be, all you had to do was declare yourself an asshole and everyone else had to tiptoe around you forevermore.

And as Amanda went on to point out, the "politically incorrect" dodge operates in exactly the same manner:

[“Politcally incorrect” has] never actually been used as an insult, contrary to conservative myth. Instead, it’s always used in praise of the person it’s applied to. It’s a totemic phrase and is invoked with the hopes that it gives the person who uses it magical protection against being criticized. The charm invoked is something like, “By using the phrase ‘politically incorrect’, I hereby have the power to say racist, sexist, or stupid things and if you try to examine my argument for things like logic or even common human decency, my Politically Incorrect Anti-Criticism Shield will make that criticism of me ricochet back and land on you, making you Politically Correct, which is the rhetorical equivalent of leperosy.”

Tweety can't call Hillary Clinton a "shrill, calculating, ball-busting bitch"on national television, but he can call himself a sexist and then ask a question that confirms his view of Hillary Clinton a shrill, calculating, ball-busting bitch -- a question that his guests are forced to answer lest they fall victim to the Politically Correct Ricochet Amanda describes. As Somerby notes, Cynthia Tucker answered the question -- and then went on to point out that his question would be sexist if he never raised the same issues about male candidates. (I wonder if Tweety thought Tucker was "calculating" because she figured out a way to have it both ways, i.e., answer his question and call him on his bullshit without looking Politically Correct, i.e., like a shrill, ball-busting bitch.)

Coincidentally, it looks like Joe Scarborough failed to reserve his asshole rights last Friday. What he should have said was, "This may be sexist, but do you think Fred Thompson's wife thinks she works the pole?" (An alternative construction would be, "This may be politically incorrect, but do you think Fred Thompson's wife thinks she works the pole?"

Then again, something tells me that that when two conservatives discuss the wife of another conservative that the Politically Correct Richochet may no longer be operative. We'll see.