Karl Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. But what if the first time around was a farce? Slate editor
Jacob Weisberg:
As you listen to Huntsman’s blunt assessment of the country’s prospects, it’s hard not to notice the commonalities with the man he would challenge in 2012... There is, to begin with, the physical resemblance. Huntsman is slender, athletic, and stylish, with a winning smile.
Do Weisberg's insidious comments about Huntsman mean that we have forgotten the lesson
Slate taught us just three short years ago?:
In the Aug. 1 Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick asked, "[C]ould Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability?" Most Americans, Chozick points out, aren't skinny. Fully 66 percent of all citizens who've reached voting age are overweight, and 32 percent are obese. To be thin is to be different physically. Not that there's anything wrong, mind you, with being a skinny person. But would you want your sister to marry one? Would you want a whole family of skinny people to move in next-door? "I won't vote for any beanpole guy," an "unnamed Clinton supporter" wrote on a Yahoo politics message board. My point is that any discussion of Obama's "skinniness" and its impact on the typical American voter can't avoid being interpreted as a coded discussion of race.
A whole family of skinny people. Can't we talk about Huntsman without alluding to his extreme Caucasian-ness?
