Dude, You're Getting a Catch Phrase

We decided to try to introduce a new, provocative phrase a la Rove/Coulter: "Salt Lake City values." It was meant to sum up the fears and hatred that evangelicals would surely have toward a Mormon candidate.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Deep down, we've each suspected we could be the love children of Karl Rove and Ann Coulter. Unfortunately, Coulter isn't old enough to be either of our mothers and, even if she was, that same otherworldly blend of hormones that's blessed her with an Adam's apple big enough to fit snugly within her scrotum would doubtless make her infertile.
But if they had been our parents, certainly we would have rebelled against their far-right antics to become their left-wing doppelgangers--bleeding-heart secular liberals who nevertheless retain the evil genius gene.

So on December 7, we decided to try to introduce a new, provocative phrase into the vernacular, a la Rove/Coulter. That phrase was "Salt Lake City values." It was meant to sum up the fears and hatred that evangelical Christians and other reactionary Americans would surely have toward a Mormon presidential candidate. But introducing a catch phrase isn't easy. We wanted to make sure we did it publicly so we could claim credit when it brings down Mitt Romney's campaign. And, of course, we've had bitter experience with this sort of thing in the past.

For instance, back in 1999 we coined the phrase "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell," which was meant to be repeated as an excited utterance to a friend who had recently acquired or was due to inherit a small, usually wooded valley. It was, of course, stolen by Dell computers and immortalized by TV's Steven the Dell Dude, played by Ben Curtis.
And after Joe coined the phrase "from hell" in reference to his third-grade teacher Miss Hefty (seriously, that was her name...and she was), "the teacher from hell," it was later co-opted by comedian Richard Lewis, who would claim all rights thereafter.

So, needless to say, we're used to this crap.

Well, two days after we posted our little dig at Governor Romney, Ellis Henican wrote in his Newsday column: "Forget 'San Francisco values': How long 'til 'Salt Lake City values' becomes the latest political sneer-slogan, only from the other side?" How long, Ellis? Well, minus-two days, to be exact. We sent you the damn thing. And to add insult to injury, you didn't even get the joke!

Oh, but at least we have our loyal MySpace friends, we thought. Surely they'd get it. After all, our MySpace page is called "Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly," and we were certain the satirical take on Bill's Talking Points Memo would not elude our fellow travelers.
Unfortunately, judging from some of the comments we got on our blog, not everyone was catching on:

"I grew up in a suburb of Sacramento that had a huge Mormon base. While some of my friends didn't drink caffeine, the rest of the stuff is exaggerated. I didn't know of polygamist marriages with forced young brides. It may happen in some remote areas here or there, but not in mainstream Mormon society." The writer even went on to tell us she was an atheist! Now we're getting shit from godless heathens?

And then there was this morsel:
"Wow, I'm as liberal as a person can get, but I have to say, this is a crock of shit. Why post an article full of half-truths and lower yourselves to the level of a Republican? I can't imagine you would agree with using the same baseless scare tactics O'Reilly uses. Would you? This article represents the same narrow-minded thinking we are trying to overcome, doesn't it?" It's a joke, people! If we had called for the internment of all Jews when Joe Lieberman went to the dark side, would you have thought us serious? Of course not. (Even though we might very well support the internment of Lieberman...somewhere nice, though--like a Sandals.)

So let's be clear, with all joking aside. We don't necessarily believe that Mitt Romney has 14 wives, at least some of whom are underaged child brides forced into a degrading sexual relationship with a man who believes he's going to ascend to godhood and inherit his own planet when he dies. Or that he would, in his first executive order, create a secret government-run gulag populated by kindly old ladies caught possessing more than an ounce of Earl Grey tea. But we can't afford to take that chance, now can we?

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot