The Republican War Against Vegetables

[dynasaw]

:crazy:"What is it about conservatives and their fear of vegetables? And how did those selfsame politicians who purport to be from "agriculture states" reconcile that fact with their bottomless hatred of all things that grow in the ground? Al Franken famously mused that Republicans have never forgiven liberals for "Freedom Riding, bra burning, pot smoking, free-loving, tree-hugging, draft-dodging, Woodstock-attending, Woodstock-overdosing, God not-fearing, and carrot cake. They've never forgiven us for carrot cake." Some say this all started when President Ronald Reagan first embraced ketchup as a vegetable and culminated when George H.W. Bush famously banned suspicious greens from Air Force One by proclaiming, Sam-I-am-like, that: ''I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm president of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!''
By then, the lines in the national vegetable wars were clearly drawn. In 1988, Dan Quayle hoisted Michael Dukakis on the end of a Belgian endive, claiming that the former Massachusetts governor was an out-of-touch vegetable elitist. (Not only was Dukakis telling Iowa farmers to grow an obscure and leafy green, he was also subtly suggesting that foreign vegetables were better than domestic ones.) President Obama took yet more Republican heat in the summer of 2007 for suggesting that farmers in Iowa might have checked out the price of arugula. Arugula! They're still reeling from that one over at Fox and Friends, where the word arugula is code for "violent Nazi-style total world dominion."

http://www.slate.com/id/2278621/pagenum/2

[HopeHoops]

1. "Is there anything we can do to serve you better?" "Yeah, I noticed you never have any arugula."

"Arugula. What's that?"

"It's a veg-et-a-ble."

From "My Blue Heaven" with Steve Martin.

[pipi_k]

2. Maybe they fear the intellectual competition from brussels sprouts, cabbages, and cucumbers..n/t

[SpiralHawk]

3. Republicons relish Genetically Mutant industrial facsimile food-like product

And they will do all they can to make sure you get it shoved down your gullet, and that it is occult (unlabeled) so you do not know, and that they and their RepubliCronies profit massively from it...

[drm604]

4. I sometimes wonder if some of this doesn't come from their supporters in the cattle industry.

How else does it make any sense to politicize freaking vegetables?

By the way, you linked to the second page of that article. It starts here: http://www.slate.com/id/2278621

[Sub Atomic]

5. Perhaps all those agricultural state pols know what's in the soil.

[Mudoria]

6. Bush 1 didn't like broccoli?

I guess we do have one thing in common then.

[MikeE]

7. This could work to our advantage

Let's give all repugs a subsidy for things like bacon and hot dogs and cigarettes. Before long we won't have to worry about them anymore.

[mdmc]

8. Freedom Riding, bra burning, pot smoking, free-loving, tree-hugging, draft-dodging, Woodstock-attend

Freedom Riding, bra burning, pot smoking, free-loving, tree-hugging, draft-dodging, Woodstock-attending, Woodstock-overdosing, God not-fearing, and carrot cake.

[SpiralHawk]

9. "Did someone say draft-dodging?" - Dick Cheney (R)

"As I and my overpaid anal-pimple pal Rush Limbaugh will attest, draft-dodging is in fact among the most cherished of Republicon Family Values.

- xVP Dickie 'Five-Military-Deferments' Cheney (R)