Lindsay Lohan's Obama Slurring: She's No Brooke Hogan

Posted at 1:13 PM Nov 12, 2008

By Kenny Herzog

Regarding the brewhaha around Lindsay Lohan's reference to Barack Obama as "our first colored president" on Access Hollywood, I've taken a day to digest the comment, and subsequent reaction throughout the blogosphere (not to mention a hearty helping of Pizza Hut's Tuscani Pasta), and have a couple of thoughts.

Firstly, the discussion over the term's innate offensiveness is besides the point. The outrage stems from it being uttered by someone in a position of public influence who's ill-equipped to distinguish between the right and wrong ways to convey complex sentiments.

Secondly, what exactly did we expect from an individual who's existed outside of any meaningful cultural discourse, and instead has reveled in or revolted against being the subject of it?

But thirdly, and maybe more earth shatteringly, the revelation of Lindsay's awkwardness around substantive conversation and ignorance toward racial matters suddenly makes Brooke Hogan seem preciously naive.

Listen folks, we (that "we" representing the media and its consumers, this site probably being no exception) created this beast, so it's a difficult to cry foul when a Lohan or a Hogan is given a pulpit and uses it to set the collective American point of view back decades.

But at least we can do more than just shake our heads robotically and rely on message-board chatter to provide conscientious feedback like Hollywood host Maria Menounos. Katie Couric would have stopped that shit at the pass.