Geoff Pender / Why is it OK to make fun of southerners like Barbour?

Political correctness is pervasive in today's media, and seldom will a public figure be made sport of over race, gender, appearance, speech, etc.

That is, unless you're a presidential candidate from Mississippi.

Then, apparently, the rules don't apply.

This isn't new, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Gov. Haley Barbour is a big boy (omigosh, did I just do it, too?), politically able to take care of himself, and after many years in politics should have to answer many questions about his record.

But some of the things columnists and political bloggers are saying about him, bless his heart, are downright mean and would appear to indicate a big double standard.

Apparently, if a candidate is a white guy from Mississippi, it's OK to make fun of his accent and weight, call him a "redneck," refer to "Hee-Haw" and question his intelligence. A quick Internet search turns up a quite a list of derogatory comments about Barbour, many of which can't be printed in a family newspaper. Heck, even the president of the United States has gotten in on it. At a large press gathering recently, he made a fat joke about the governor: "Haley, when Michelle (Obama) said you should run, she didn't mean for president," President Barack Obama said to guffaws from those who otherwise consider themselves defenders of the oppressed and castigators of stereotyping.

And this is not coming just from fringe bloggers. Note this comment from a columnist with The Washington Post about Barbour's recent trip to Israel: "Let's be honest: his thick Southern accent is a bit hard for American audiences to discern, and it surely must have baffled the Israelis." What? Hard for American audiences? Last time I checked, a rather large swath of Americans sound a lot like Barbour. Heck, I'm one of them.

Should I employ an interpreter when I try to speak to "Americans"? Many of the comments are racial in nature. Can you imagine the uproar if the counterparts to these comments were made about someone who was not white, or not from the Deep South? Many of the comments and articles in this vein appear to question Barbour's intelligence, based on his Yazoo drawl. This is pretty funny to anyone who knows or has dealt with Barbour. He may be a lot of things, but dumb is not one of them. Even if his drawl is slow as molasses, his brain appears to work at lightning speed.

Perhaps, as the old Southern joke goes, Haley is just talking slow so the Yankees can keep up.

On another note, about Haley and the Deep South, the Biloxi Sun Herald and other state media have gotten questions about the governor's lapel pin.

He has been seen of late wearing one that is a red (of course) outline of the state, with "Mississippi" on it. For years, he most often wore one that featured the American and Mississippi flags.

Some readers wonder if this has anything to do with the state flag containing the rebel cross in one corner, and maybe Barbour figuring that wouldn't play so well when he campaigned for president in other areas.

His spokeswoman says no. She said the governor has for years worn the state-shaped pin while outside Mississippi, so people will recognize it's Mississippi. She said he has been wearing it in-state now, too, and that he still wears the flag pin sometimes, both in and out of state.

A quick scan of photo archives would appear to bear this out, although the state-shaped pin appears to be worn most often.

Maybe it means something. Or, heck, maybe it's just the one that got pinned to his favorite jacket.

Geoff Pender is political editor of the Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi, Miss. Email:

glpender@sunherald.com.