Coming out of pretty much nowhere and taking the jaded media and the even more exhausted populace by tepid surprise, that adorably dopey, semi-articulate I'm-not-a-racist totally racist justice of the peace in rural Louisiana has said he won't resign after refusing to marry a local interracial couple -- fearing, he claimed, that the couple's offspring would be some sort of immoral threat to the stability of the country and might therefore screw up his cable TV reception. Or whatever.
"Everybody hates me. Really. I don't know why," Keith Bardwell actually warbled to reporters, most of whom just sort of stood there, completely dumbstruck and amazed, calmly aware they were in the presence of something very special indeed, a long-forgotten, slightly nauseating hunk of American history many believed had long gone extinct, but which now sat before them, freshly unearthed from the vaults of 1977.
"Interracial marriage? Really? We have to care about that again for 1/16th of a nanosecond?" sighed most of the incredulous media. "All right, fine. Screw it. Put it on A1 with a 46-point hed, just below the balloon boy," muttered most newspaper editors across the nation, before the story vanished into the waste bin of oh-my-God-give-me-a-fucking-break.
Meanwhile, positively dozens of regrettably naive liberals were not quite done expressing shock and dismay at the very existence of Bardwell.
"Oh my God, you mean to tell me random examples of inbred, moronic racism still exist in rural Louisiana, of all places? Color me appalled!" they actually said, pun intended.
"Here I was, thinking most of the South had become this gleaming, open-hearted bastion of highly educated positivism and love and free birth control for teenagers, organic kombucha in the public drinking fountains and complimentary Prius dealerships for all gay marrieds!" they said, before being slapped.
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