March 26, 2008
Ever Wonder Why Wonkette Calls McCain WALNUTS! ??
Wonkette is snarky, they say. Wonkette is childish, they say. Wonkette is for bored Washingtonians who should be solving the nation's problems, but instead are wasting their time on the interwebs, they say. Wonkette is a blog for those in the know, written by those who wish that they knew or who wish that they had the power to do something with what they know, they say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatevs. I don't much care about all that. I like reading Wonkette in my Morning Internets, it makes me feel a little bit like a fancy D.C. insider myself--and what politically inclined academic doesn't secretly want that? However, there has been one thing that has been bothering me about my whole I-read-Wonkette-to-feel-like-an-insider morning routine:
Why the f@*k does Wonkette call John McCain WALNUTS! ??
After all, I can't be much of an insider if I can't understand this oft-repeated inside joke. And, with the November election still 7 months away and a 50% possibility that WALNUTS! will get elected, I figured that this WALNUTS! thing is likely to drive me nuts for quite a while. Thus determined and armed with nothing more than my awesome research skills and Wonkette's search engine I attempted to resolve my insider/outsider liminal D.C. dilemma. I report this information to you so that you can share in my triumph.
Wonkette has referred to John McCain as WALNUTS! no less than 378 times (3 alone since I conducted my "research" this afternoon). It appears that they began calling Senator McCain WALNUTS! on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 in a post entitled, "The Next Two Years Are Already Unbearable." In this prescient post Wonkette featured the above Youtube by "Salvatore the Intern" in which he argued that McCain was clearly the best candidate for the presidency because of his cute "walnut" shaped cheeks, among other things. Wonkette continued to use the WALNUTS! sobriquet and has often found it synecdochal not just of McCain's cute cheeks, but also of his foreign policy.
And there you have it: the history of WALNUTS! McCain.
I don't know about you, but my Morning Internets will be just a little bit sweeter tomorrow. For tomorrow I will be able not only to read the political blog for those in the know, but now I'll know why we think WALNUTS! is so funny. WALNUTS! ha! ha! WALNUTS! Get it?
8 comments:
Uh Oh! Wonkette's daddy, Gawker, would not approve of your continued use of a blogging cliche, I fear.
"Bad Cliché: Internets. Also 'interweb,' 'interwebs,' 'series of tubes,' and anything other than the actual word 'internet.' 'Internets' was a throwaway joke in October 2004 and was tired by November. What are you, smug just for being familiar with the Internet? Just call it what it's called."
http://gawker.com/365426/blogging-clichs-that-must-die
Oh right, Gawker. No one can be smug but you, I forgot.
What was funnier than WALNUTS was when Wonkette started calling him "torture cheeks."
I thought it was because McBush IS a wrinkled nut.
He's called Walnuts because he resembles the Sopranos character Paulie Walnuts, except without the hair.
Thanks so much! I needed to know this and you helped!
THANK YOU! This has been bugging me. I can finally sleep.
To the poor first commenter, forever stuck in March of 2008: As of that year, Gawker no longer owns our Wonkette.
Way to cut and paste like a pro, though!
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