Coburn Evokes Ricky Ricardo While Speaking To Sotomayor: "You'll Have Lots Of Splainin' To Do" (VIDEO)

(AP) WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tom Coburn evoked a 1950s TV show Wednesday in a quip responding to Sonia Sotomayor's scenario about what he might do if she - hypothetically, of course - attacked him.

"You'll have a lot of 'splainin' to do," Coburn said, to laughter from the crowd and Sotomayor. What he said - and how he said it - was a riff on a Hispanic television character, Ricky Ricardo, whose accent is now widely considered a broad parody.

In the famous 1950s TV show "I Love Lucy," the Cuban bandleader Ricardo (played by the equally Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz) would often admonish his scatterbrained wife, Lucy, by saying she'd have some "'splainin'" to do. The phrase, "Lucy, you have some 'splainin' to do," has since become part of the popular culture.

Calling Coburn out for this might be going too far - those who know him say he often speaks like this - but it was hard not to notice his inflection and choice of words. At the very least, it suggests a tin ear - particularly when speaking to a woman who would become the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice.

Yvette Melendez, a Glastonbury, Conn., woman attending the hearing, said she winced inwardly when Coburn made his comment but did not feel offended.

"I personally did not think it was appropriate," she said. "But I'm sure he said it as a joke."

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Comments

[SmolderingRuin]

Coburn is yet another C Street Family (Fellowship) resident. I'm sure he thinks all women have a lot of splainin to do.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/14/rachel-maddow-draws-fire_n_231538.html?page=8&show_comment_id=27117566#comment_27117566

[fresberg]

I think what I am enjoying most is watching these old white men, day after day, drive home how out of touch they are with their own prejudice and with a large segment of the American population, all the while thinking they are coming off as really smart as they play to the cameras and to their ever-dwindling segment of voters. It is amazing how insulated their privileged lives have allowed them to be from the American population as a whole. Of course, too often the only important people to these elected officials have been those who have money to help them with their next campaigns. We will truly have a good system only when we finally have publicly-funded campaigns.

[WSAY]

To those of you who claim that this was innocent, you are either being disingenuous, or you're not thinking the issue through. The question is not whether Sen. Tom Coburn made a bad joke. Many people make bad jokes. John Kerry made a bad joke about the troops. The issue here is not whether it was a bad joke, as much as it is the subject matter of the joke. When Al Franken made his jokes, they were not about race, or gender, or ethnicity. They were about Perry Mason. However, notice how often the fact that Judge Sotomayor is a Puerto Rican comes up with Republicans. When Republicans look at Judge Sotomayor, they think "Puerto Rican." So naturally, when Sen. Coburn tried to crack a joke it was about the fact that she is Puerto Rican. It wasn't about the weather, or what it's like to be a judge, and it wasn't about New York or the Bronx, it was about being Puerto Rican. When your average Republican looks at a Puerto Rican, he sees "Puerto Rican." Just as he sees "black" when he looks at Pres. Obama, and "woman" when he looks at Justice Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg. To the bigoted Republicans, the issue is race, or gender, or ethnicity. The problem here was not the joke, the problem here is all the Republicans see is a Puerto Rican.

[InformedAmerican]

Absolutely on point!

[Christopher Clark]

Very well stated. This, I think, really sums up the republican social outlook.

[Christopher in NYC]

.... but the league of old white Southern men will never change. The Confederate states will never forget their rebel roots and collective experience. Beauregard Sessions is a prime example of this sentiment.

Not condoning it, just tellin' it like it is....

[CR46]

Co-sign

[llmitchellb]

Fr acking id-eeee-ot

[itschuck2c]

I just wish she would have answered the question..

[GoodFeathers]

Did he say "Baw! right in the kisser"?

[Demarcus Jackson]

This is what an increasingly regional, irrelevant, issue-less and emotion-laden party looks like. The GOP continues to shrink to its bare bones---the most extreme and the most venomous elements of the base. There is a large part of me that wants the GOP to continue to the slow and agonizingly painful march to political death. There is a very small part of me that feels sorry for them; that the party of Lincoln (my personal favorite U.S. President and Republican) has resorted to stereotyped jokes at a Supreme Court hearing.

[muypolitico]

Lighten up. That was nothing and I don't see any ill intent.

Mucho ruido y pocas nueces.

[Christopher in NYC]

Precisely.­..

[aspertame2]

A familiar ploy, Coburn's. Be gently and joshingly offensive, and best case scenario, your target might take so much umbrage as to make you look like the reasonable and conciliatory one. Oh, goodness, I'm SO sorry if I offended you.

Wisely, Sotomayor didn't make anything of it. Just a little man, having a little joke.

[td74]

Craig, Ensign, Coburn, Sanford, Sessions, the Freak Parade continues!

[lincheryl]

She should have said, "but Ricky, can I please be in the show, please?"

[lincheryl]

With the dignity and maturity shown by the GOP during these hearings, I expect one to ask at any time, "Do you have cooties? Someone told me you have cooties. EWWWW gross."

[DBtv]

Most cynically and unabashed ra cist senator ever. And that is saying something.

[InformedAmerican]

...and the sad thing about this is that he doesn't even realize just how insensitive and racist he sounds. He's apparently so used to making these "off-color jokes" in his "circle" that he actually thinks it's ok. Thank God his "circle of friends" are no longer the majority by any measure.

[den1953]

I suppose the first words out of Senator Coburn is Babba LOOOOOUUU!!!!!!!

[ThatOne4Me]

wow. insensitive!