Like a slap in the face

I've been a member of an e-mail list of moms for 10 years now. There are people on there from around the world, of all kinds of political persuasions and education levels and economic backgrounds. We've had our ups and downs, our flame wars, and people who couldn't stand a debate left, often to just sign back up again after a month or two.

Everyone on the list knows that I am a liberal, and that I will loudly and proudly stand up to defend liberal principles when they are challenged. Everyone knows how I feel about George W. Bush.

Today, we were discussing Katrina, and someone forwarded Tom Friedman's recent column Osama and Katrina (shorter version: Gaw-aw-lly, Mr. Bush shore did look tuff on 9/11! Garsh, I'm naive.)

I pulled out Friedman's statement about how he felt that George Bush was the right man for going after Osama bin Laden, and stated how something that added to my heartbreak on 9/11 was that I knew Bush was president and he was going to fuck it up.

I then said perhaps I was a little too biased, since I hated Dubya from the first moment I saw his smirking face and heard his phony Texas accent.

And one of the moms, who is ordinarily a lovely person, but definitely under the hypnotic sway of the right-wing, called me a racist.

I have never been called a racist before, and even though it goes without saying that she was 1. way out of line, 2. wrong and 3. how the fuck does criticism of Bush equal any kind of racism, particularly since I'm white and from Connecticut, just like Bush, it hit me like a slap in the face. That's the worst thing anyone has ever called me.