Letters to the Editor
-
Don't ban words
Rhodes wasn't criticizing Clinton or Ferraro for being politically "easy." She was criticizing them for racist remarks, and paying attention to technicalities. That would be bigotry and pedantry, respectively, not whorishness. So in that context "fucking whore" was a gratuitous epithet.
So someone finally gets around to talking about context.
One could call Barack Obama a "fucking whore" without violating any boundaries because "whore" isn't sex-specific or profession-specific. Because BO is male, one wouldn't need to clarify he was referring to BO letting Rezko buy him a house.
Likewise one could call Hillary Clinton "lazy and shiftless" because it isn't race-specific and she's white, without referring to specific actions that demonstrated laziness and shiftlessness.
Calling a woman a "fucking whore" or a black man "lazy and shiftless" can still be acceptable, but added context is required because both historically served as sexist/racial slurs.
Neither phrase is completely out of bounds in every circumstance or context, and context determines whether it is merely an insult or a slur.
Blanket declarations about any words or phrases, ignoring context, are ill-advised.