Maureen Dowd speaks in code and everyone understands what she means.

Another low point in the endless and senseless coverage of a married professional golfer’s extramarital affairs was Maureen Dowd’s smarmy attempt to find a trend in the actions of Tiger Woods and White House social secretary Desiree Rogers who might (but might not) share some blame for party-crashers penetrating President Obama’s first state dinner and demurred from testifying to Congress about the incident. 

GenXProgress in the Daily Kos has already discussed the inherent racism in the connection between Tiger and Ms. Rogers, since the two people and two cases have absolutely nothing to do with each other except that both are at least part African-American.

What GenXProgress does not detail, and I will provide here, are the many racial code phrases Dowd uses or creates on the spot to explain why our anger at Tiger and Ms. Rogers is and should be similar in nature:

• “…put themselves beyond authority…”
•  “…perfectionist high-achievers brought low…”
• “…both the golf diva and the social diva…
• “…it was the assertion of personal privilege by Tiger and Desiree that was offensive…” (and not Ms. Roger’s assertion of “executive privilege” or Tiger’s desire not to air his dirty laundry in public, a desire he shares with virtually every public person caught in extracurricular hanky-panky).
• “She mistook herself for the principal, sashaying around and posing in magazines as though she were the first lady…”

As far as I can tell, these phrases are all code for “uppity N*****s.”  Shame on Ms. Dowd for stooping so low.