The ultimate Mickey Kaus / Stuff White People Like convergence

Mickey writes:

Went to a Halloween party dressed as The Bradley Effect. The elemental conceptual simplicity of my costume somehow failed to terrify, even in a Dem heavy Hollywood crowd. ... This may be the first election where average Web-surfing, procrastinating liberal comedy writers know more about the last Insider Advantage poll in Pennsylvania than Howard Fineman does.... Unfortunately, they thought the photo of George Deukmejian on my costume** was Robert Rubin.

**--Pinned to the red half of the costume under a blue flap that--easier to show than tell--flopped over to obscure a photo of long-serving L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, whom they mistook for an Asian man. They had been drinking. ...

As a summer job in 1981, I worked for a lady who worked for Mayor Tom. I shook the Mayor's hand once: A tall, impressive man with an unusual look to him. I thought he looked quite American Indian, much like basketball player Scottie Pippen does. Oddly enough, he also looked much like Anwar Sadat, who was half-Sudanese.

Meanwhile, Christian Lander blogs on Stuff White People Like:

Halloween is so important to white people because they have to wear a costume. It is a chance to literally show everyone how clever you are without having to say a word. ... For this reason any white Halloween Party is less of a celebration than it is a contest. And as with any contest, there are a lot of rules.

The first thing you need to know that white people are the only people on the planet who will dress up as a concept. So while your initial thoughts about a costume might be “cowboy,” “policeman,” or “Count Dracula,” white people are more likely to think “math,” “the economy,” or “Post-Modernism.”

Dressing up as a concept is always a major gamble. On one hand, there is the chance that you nail it just right and everyone in the room will recognize how you not only cleverly interpreted the idea but also executed it perfectly in physical form. If you get it wrong, you will be required to spend the entire night explaining yourself. Then again, it is a good way to get white people to talk to you.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer