Joshua Micah Marshall questions some Republican rhetoric:
More on Pelosi. For all the conservative chattering and outrage about alleged Democratic gay-baiting in Montana and South Carolina this Fall, don't we all know the subtext of Republican efforts to tag Pelosi as a "San Francisco Democrat"? Is this something we're not allowed to discuss? And why not?Go ahead and discuss it, Joshua, but I don't believe that this is the "subtext" of the phrase at all. It's not as if Pelosi from Massachusetts, after all; she literally is a San Francisco Democrat.
(And what's with the claim of "alleged" Democratic gay-baiting? It was explicit, at least in the South Carolina situation.)
Still, if that perfectly descriptive phrase has become off-limits thanks to the Sensitivity Police, how about if we just go with "Berkeley Democrat?" It's not quite as geographically precise, but it captures the political image quite nicely.