The 44 Imaginary Things Ted Nugent Says Are Worse Than His Racist Comment

Philip Bump
The 44 Imaginary Things Ted Nugent Says Are Worse Than His Racist Comment

Ted Nugent spent much of the week in a feud with CNN and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and others after having called President Obama a "subhuman mongrel" in January. (This was widely perceived as racist because it is racist.) On a CNN radio show on Friday, Nugent apologized — but not before comparing his comments to 44 even-more-offensive things that he apparently believes Obama has done.

"I do apologize," Nugent said to conservative radio host and CNN commentator Ben Ferguson. "Not necessarily to the president, but on behalf of much better men than myself." He apologized "for using the streetfighter terminology of 'subhuman mongrel' instead of just using more understandable language, such as 'violator of his own- the Constitution.'" (That is not more understandable.)

But on Twitter, he said other things. Forty-four other things, in 44 tweets, asking if various anti-Obama conspiracy theories and subsets of anti-Obama conspiracy theories were more offensive than Nugent's words. As a service to the public, we have decided to answer his 44 questions.

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Each begins the same way: "Are words really more offensive than …" We broke his 44 items out into three groups: those that are more offensive than words , those that are not more offensive than words, and those that it is impossible to tell. By "words," we assumed Nugent was referring to his own words; in the abstract words themselves, as a group, are not offensive at all.

In each case, we took Nugent's assertion at face value — since many if not most have no direct correlation to anything that President Obama has done, we considered them only as themselves. Are racist words worse than "fundamentally transforming America?" Impossible to tell! What kind of transformation? And so on.

Why didn't we rationalize our answers? Because this is a person trying to justify comparing the first African-American president of the United States to a mixed-breed dog. His complaints don't warrant the energy.

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Things that in the abstract are more offensive than racist words.

  • "5 dead Americans on Obamaswatch"

  • "abandoning Americans held by our enemies"

  • "Brian Terrys murder"

  • "claiming 4 dead Americans dont matter"

  • "denying Ft Hood heroes their just due"

  • "denying vets proper medical treatment"

  • "enslaving the uneducated"

This category requires some explanation. Killing people is more offensive than being racist, as does treating people, American or not, in horrible ways. Also: slavery is worse than racism. Again: none of this has much of anything to do with Obama.

Things that are not more offensive than racist words.

  • "a biased lying media"

  • "a gunrunning attorney general"

  • "an anti education system"

  • "blackpanthers threatening voters"

  • "bribing & rewarding bloodsuckers & conartists"

  • "buying votes"

  • "criminal IRS jackboots"

  • "denying Ft Hood was terrorism"

  • "engineered recidivism"

  • "engineered unemployment"

  • "fast & furious"

  • "forcing Americans to buy healthcare for others"

  • "government out of control"

  • "government spying on Americans"

  • "hating America"

  • "ignoring threats against America"

  • "infringing on 2A rights"

  • "jackboots raiding Gibson guitars"

  • "lying about Benghazi"

  • "making the poor poorer"

  • "Obama Mao redistribution"

  • "Pilosi's vulgar abuse of power" [Ed. – Who?]

  • "presidential lies"

  • "punishing the producers"

  • "racial preferences"

  • "refusal of accountability"

  • "the death tax"

  • "the racist knockout game"

  • "the runawayfraud deceit & gvt corruption"

  • "the Saul Alinsky klan"

  • "the scam of economic equality"

  • "the scam of social justice"

  • "violating your oath of office"

Some more explication is in order, obviously. Some of these are obvious. "Presidential lies" would be less offensive than racist words because racism is worse than lies. What about "fast & furious," a reference to the botched ATF program that sent guns to Mexico hoping to weed out gun-runners? That's not offensive, as such, any more than "engineered unemployment" is.

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Unless you're Ted Nugent and you are looking for any reason to be irritated with or angry at a president that you obviously disdain. 

Things that might or might not be more offensive than racist words.

  • "Al not so Sharpton racism"

  • "fundamentally transforming America"

  • "supporting partial birth abortion murder"

  • "trampling the US Constitution"

And now, a note on that third one. An actual murder is more offensive than racist words. Tough call. But since everyone will be arguing in the comments anyway, feel free to include that in the mix.

Final score: Most of the things Nugent lists are not worse than the racist comments for which he has now apologized. The end. 

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/02/44-imaginary-things-ted-nugent-says-are-worse-his-racist-comment/358379/

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