Somebody made an oopsie!

From TGPW:

"Honestly, I've never paid that much attention to Michelle Obama. Just
what little I've seen of her and Senator Obama, is that they're a
member of an elitist class... that thinks that they're uppity."



-- Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), quoted by CQ Politics.



'


Ok so this guy isn't a prominent Republican, but he's trying out a few attacks.
We've got the mention of elitism, which is apparently standard and doesn't seem to be that effective against Obama. We've got the dismissal of Mrs. Obama, which is also standard and doesn't seem that effective either.

And then we've got that one word: uppity.

All right then. I don't pretend to know what's going on inside Rep. Wesmoreland's mind, but when confronted with a mental picture of a black woman he would like to see politically defeated, he reaches for the word 'uppity.'

There are two groups of people the word 'uppity' applies to:

1. African-Americans who don't "know their place"
2. Women who don't "know their place"

This is what I'd call a political 'oopsie'. It probably won't get wide coverage, but let's be honest - it's not a very common word except in the above contexts. I don't want to argue about whether it's racist or sexist or not. I don't want to argue about whether those features are endemic to Republicans or not (for what it's worth, a large amount of liberal criticism of Palin is transparently sexist: I've heard her called a 'traitor' to her female-ness because she's pro-life). I would hope that Rep. Westmoreland sees he spoke loosely.

[Someday I will give a formal definition of the 'oopsie,' which I plan to make a political neologism just like 'truthiness]