Remember how the right-wing media excoriated John Kerry in 2003 for ordering a Philly cheese steak with Swiss cheese instead of Cheez Whiz? That was proof positive, Rush Limbaugh said, that the “reputed Vietnam veteran” thinks he’s “better than all the people in ‘flyover country.’ You can tell that this cheese steak looks very foreign to Kerry.” Or remember how they pilloried President Obama for eating a burger with mustard? “What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard?” asked Laura Ingraham. Signs of Frenchification! Of feminization! Of being traitors to American Exceptionalism!
Mustard may be the evil condiment, but eating pizza with a fork—as the supposedly NYC-bred Donald Trump did yesterday with the supposedly family-vacationing Sarah Palin—well, that doesn’t offend the right at all. But food-borne indignation over that is red meat for Jon Stewart:
