Like all good journalists, I get most of my news from Gawker. Actually, I get most of my news (at least that portion of my news that doesn't involve the swine flu, robots, UFO sightings or the coming zombie apocalypse) from my wife, Laura, who gets her news from Gawker and then tells me.
Because of this quaint, old-fashioned, two-tin-cans-and-a-string method of headline transmission that occurs at the Sheehan household, I was a little late in hearing about the newest left-wing outrage being screeched about over on Fox News--namely that Barack Obama, during a recent lunch visit to Ray's Hell-Burger in Arlington with his VP and BFF Joe Biden, ordered a burger with (gasp!) Grey Poupon mustard.
Sean Hannity, proving once again that he can go apoplectic over anything at all, brought this breaking news straight to the American public. "Take a look at him ordering his burger," Hannity said, "with a very special condiment." At which point he went right to the tape -- the one that shows Obama (formerly of Chicago, let's recall, the land of spicy mustard and, obviously, no place for a real man) standing at the counter and asking for "your basic cheddar cheese burger, medium well. Uh...I just want mustard. No ketchup. You got, like, a spicy mustard or something like that? Or a Dijon mustard? Something like that?"
At which point, Hannity lost his shit. See, Le Prez hadn't even asked for Grey Poupon, but Hannity -- mouth-breathing right-wing iconoclast that he is -- immediately started frothing, then went to the monitors again (this time to rebroadcast one of those Grey Poupon commercials from the '80s), then came back and actually said: "I hope you enjoyed that fancy burger, Mr. President."
The point? Obama ain't no common man because, for the common man, ketchup ought to be enough. Not even catsup. And don't get Hannity started on fancy catsup.
And if a man--a common man, a real man and a real American--is going to get so hoity-toity as to consider any sort of mustard at all, it'd better be nothing other than plain ol' yellow mustard. Not French's yellow mustard, of course. That's too...well, French. But some kind of other yellow mustard that's all manly and watery and runny and tastes like shit. Because that's what real common men like, right, Hannity? Plain stuff that tastes like crap and doesn't have the name of another country in it.
Me? I like green chiles on my burgers. And regular chili, too. And bacon. Lots of bacon. And cheese (gruyere or havarti is awesome) and ham and avocados and ketchup (the fancier the better) and mustard (the spicier and more Dijon-y the better) and occasionally even mayonnaise. I don't like all of these things together on a single burger, mind you, but I like them all just the same. And in Hannity's world, I can't even imagine what this would make me. Some kinda pinko commie liberal pantywaist, no doubt. Certainly not a real man. Barely even a man at all. Also, probably part Mexican and therefore deserving of no place in Hannity's America.
But that's okay. Just means that I won't be going to any backyard cookouts at Hannity's compound. And in the meantime, should Mr. Spicy Mustard himself ever find his way out to Denver again, I'd love to meet him at the Cricket for a green chile cheeseburger with cheddar, no ketchup, and all the spicy mustard he wants.
The one thing that worries me? That Obama likes his burgers medium-well. What a pussy cautious fellow he is.
Though maybe he knows something about Ray's Hell-Burger that the rest of us don't.
