Now there’s a headline you probably would not have foreseen.

It makes sense, though. A little bit of sense. Basically, what happened was that Kelly Ripa was telling a funny story about a kid getting something wrong. It’s funny when kids get something wrong, because it’s usually very close to reality, but far enough away that it’s hilarious. Like when my little cousin pronounced “elephant” as “element.”

In this case, a child had said that the political parties were “elephants and donkeys.” (What is it with little kids and elephants?) When Kelly asked if the child knew what the actual names of the parties were, the child said, “sure, elephants are Republican and donkeys are Dominican.”

The audience laughed, and so did Regis, who quipped, “she’s pretty close.”

Now, to any rational person, it might seem that he was referring to the fact that “Dominican” and “Democrat” are pretty similar words. But no one who represents a special interest group is rational. A variety of “Dominican-American and Lation leaders” are staging a protest outside the ABC studies tomorrow, because “host Regis Philbin practically agreed with laughter over what the two thought was a joke.”

…okay, I don’t quite understand what he’s talking about, but I can see how you might think he was comparing Dominicans to donkeys if you didn’t really understand anything about anything. But that is clearly not Regis’s intent, and if you handed him a map, I seriously doubt he could point out the Dominican Republic. Neither can I, which is exactly my point. I have zero opinion about Dominicans. At least I know the country’s not called Dominica or something.

I would understand this whole fiasco if there were some stereotype about Dominicans and donkeys, but as far as I know, no such thing exists. And I’m sure Regis Philbin isn’t aware of it - nor should it be expected to be. I realize that different people find different things offensive - I was at BCC when this whole fiasco went down - and remember that whole Sarah Palin “lipstick on a pig” thing? - but trying to ascribe malice to Regis’s comment is idiotic.

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