Gimme a chocolate cruller, coffee with cream and two sugars, and a heaping side of conservative craziness.
That’s been the order du jour at Dunkin Donuts stores across the country this week, as the company buckled under an assault by right-wingers in the blogosphere.
It all started with Rachael Ray. Yup, none other than that perennially-perky pusher of meals in minutes.
Turns out that Rachael wore a lovely black-and-white paisley scarf in an on-line ad for DD’s iced coffee.
Blogmeister Michelle Malkin, who the Chicago Tribune says “scours the world’s hot button issues hoping to raise the heat” took to the Internet with rants about the scarf resembling a keffiyeh - a “jihadi chic keffiyeh” to be exact – and wondered aloud if Dunkin Donuts should be boycotted because of this “blunder.” The implication - and the ensuing chatter on the net - was that the garment was synonymous with terrorism and that DD and RR were somehow sending a message about Islamic terror organizations.
At first, DD issued a statement saying there was no hidden symbolism behind the scarf. It was simply the wardrobe choice of the stylist working on that particular ad.
But in response to an apparent frenzy of fear-mongering posts on the Internet, the company pulled the ad a couple days ago.
I guess there’s plenty to debate here.
Is the keffiyeh a symbol of terrorism or simply the traditional garb that most Palestinian men wear to work in the fields and walk their kids to school?
Was Dunkin Donuts weak-kneed to pull the ad or just protecting its stockholders?
Heck. You can even debate whether Dunkin Donuts' iced coffee is as good as the new one from Mickey Ds.
But, to me, the more important question is why the heck does Michelle Malkin get so much play? I don’t know how this woman gets up and faces that first coffee-and-cruller each morning. If I had to make my living peddling paranoia, I’d wrap a stylish black and white keffiyeh around my neck and pull real hard.
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