In mocking Sen. Joni Ernst's 'bread bags,' aren't liberals being hypocritical?
Its hard to say what coastal liberals think is funnier: the fact that Republican Sen. Joni Ernsts thrifty mother tied bread bags over her little girls feet to protect her shoes on muddy days -- or the fact that Ernst comes from Iowa, where the untutored rubes do things like that.
Heres what Ernst said in her rebuttal to President Obamas State of the Union address Tuesday:
You see, growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry. But I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet.
Those dopey Iowans! Just one good pair of shoes! Let the mockery begin!
Bien-pensants from Seattle to La Jolla and from Boston to Charlottesville, Va., stayed up all Tuesday night and most of Wednesday to crack jokes in blogs and on Twitter (#breadbags) about just how backward Ernst had to be. This from the people who claim to be unlimited in their compassion for the poor -- except if the poor happen to live in a flyover state and vote Republican.
Iowa-trashing has been a respectable pastime among the big-brained ever since University of Iowa journalism professor Stephen Bloom wrote a 6,000-word article for the Atlantic in 2011 complaining that Iowans were culturally-challenged, and that the state contained too many cornfields, church steeples and white people.
Some of the sophisticates on the Internet claimed to know more than Ernst herself about life in southeastern Iowa farm country.
Here, for example, HonestyinGov tweeted: If Joni grew up on RURAL farm -- wouldnt they bake their OWN bread.
Bustles Keertana Sastry snarkily asked: Has anyone tested out Ernsts routine shoe-protection out yet?
Sarah Jones of PoliticusUSA cracked this funny: The question is, was Ernst wearing bread bags on her feet during the SOTU rebuttal?
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In mocking Sen. Joni Ernst's 'bread bags,' aren't liberals being hypocritical?