"I'm not a racist, but..."
Whoever has heard this stock preamble knows what's coming next. Pure, Grade A, triple distilled racism. You can of course also replace racist with sexist, anti semite, homophobe or any other kind of bigot.
Some race obsessed right wingers will employ a different tactic and try to defang the label by claiming over -- and indiscriminate -- use of the charge, making it invalid. No matter what they may have said or done, they try to claim immunity by counter charging that "the race card" has been --yet again -- unfairly played against them by unscrupulous "race hustlers." Some will even go so far as to proudly and loudly claim: "We've been called 'racist' for so long that it just doesn't matter anymore."
However, coupled with actual GOP and right wing policies, behaviors and statements that hurt and put down various subordinated groups, most Gopers and right wingers understand how toxic such accurate labels are to them. So, rather than trying to change their behavior to escape the charge, they, in their continuing campaign to outlaw reality, seek to change the definition of the term: "Hey man, I don't wear white sheets and burn crosses or holler the n-word every time I seem "one of them" walking the streets, so I can't be racist, by definition."
Steve Benen at the Maddow Blog writes about Speaker Boehner doing this yesterday with the definition of "threat":
I don't mean to sound picky, but when you effectively argue, "Give me what I want or I'll push the country to default," that's what "threatening default" means. The Speaker is playing a strange semantics game in which he's declared he'll refuse to raise the debt limit, deliberately trash the full faith and credit of the United States, and push the nation into default, on purpose, unless Democrats cave to his demands.
Now he's also saying, "I'm not threatening default." It seems Boehner (a) doesn't understand his own strategy; (b) doesn't want to tell the truth; or (c) doesn't understand what "threaten" means.
I mean, it's so uncouth to insist on accurate descriptions of policies, behavior and statements. Only the unwashed and bloggers would be so indecorous.