Important comment on my last post

IMPORTANT:

I wrote this last night immediately after getting home from a six-hour drive with a head cold, listening to the whole debate during the last couple of hours and to a couple of pre-debate talk shows/news shows before that.  During that listening time, I heard several people comment on the topic over the air; then I found a couple of comments about it on my friends’ list when I got home.  I was irritated and exhausted, and I posted without thinking my phrasing through.  It’s not an excuse, but I know that’s responsible for the tone of it, in which I come off like an asshole (for which I’m sorry). 

I don’t apologize, though, for my concern about how people use that pronunciation as a "tell" about her intelligence.  This morning, I did more research on it (Wikipedia has a decent summary article on it with some links) and I stand by my position, if not quite as obnoxiously. 

In the Wikipedia article, there’s a footnote that leads to an old article from the conservative pundit William Safire that takes Bill Clinton gently to task for using the same pronunciation.  (Yup.  Bill Clinton sometimes says "nucyular.")  So there’s precedent on both sides of the political debate for this kind of red herring to be used as a weapon to ridicule and insult their opposition. 

All I want theliberal and tolerant people of my aquaintance to do is live up to our professed standards of tolerance and understanding.  To understand that making such a trivial thing a red flag for larger issues is a type of subtle bigotry and snobbery that annoys me, and that we have a long tradition of fighting that stuff when we see it; the use of such a tactic, however satisfying, is to do what we claim we will not do, and what we claim to abhor.

I apologize, again, to those I’ve offended with my tone.  I trust you will take that into account and forgive my boorishness.  But I am not apologizing for calling it out.