Hillary Clinton told CNN’s Jake Tapper Friday that she’s learned to handle Donald Trump’s imprecations against her. She’s steeled herself against his acid tongue, and his insults roll right off her back. Because, quite frankly, she’s familiar with his type.
Yet in saying so, she managed to make an “offensive” comment herself. Answering Tapper’s question about her experience with Trump’s “politically incorrect” approach to political discourse, Hillary walked into a PC controversy of her own.
“I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get off the reservation in the way they behave and how they speak,” Clinton responded. “I’m not going to deal with their temper tantrums or efforts to try to provoke me.”
Clinton may not have been aware she was committing a faux pas, as she hesitated ever so slightly before the final word, “reservation.” In any case, hilarity (or, in this case, “Hill-arity”) ensured.
Native American advocates—and others—immediately denounced her use of the phrase “off the reservation,” which derives from 19th-century government policies that required American Indians to stay within the borders of their reservations. It’s now believed by many editors that the phrase reflects approvingly on negative stereotypes. NPR has declared the term “off limits.”
Unfortunately, the meaning of the #OffTheReservation expression used by Sen Clinton is as bad as you'd think. #Fail https://t.co/uYW5ewd7cB
— Andrew S. Potts (@AndrewSPotts) May 1, 2016
Team Clinton then kowtowed to the thought police, issuing a swift and immediate apology.
(1/2) About the use of an expression today that has some very offensive roots…Divisive language has no place in our politics.
— Amanda Renteria (@AmandaRenteria) April 30, 2016
(2/2) @HillaryClinton meant no disrespect to Native Americans. She wants this election to be about lifting people up, not tearing them down.
— Amanda Renteria (@AmandaRenteria) April 30, 2016
Sharing in the Native Americans’ outrage was Donald Trump himself. By Sunday morning, Trump was ready for Fox and Friends, where he announced that, not only was “off the reservation” a terrible expression, but that it was “demeaning to men.” After all, he quipped, she was “referring to her husband.”
He also took the opportunity to criticize the inherent sexism of the media response, declaring that had he said “off the reservation” that it “would have been a front page story.” He then tested the theory by joking that Geraldo Rivera could be his running mate.
