Acceptable In Most Contexts

Well, it seems all hell has broken loose over a comment by the California secretary of education -- all over the news are reports that he called 6-year-old Isis D'Luciano a "stupid, dirty girl" at an event in Santa Barbara (reports vary on exactly what the event was).
For the record, and since they actually didn't show the video clip on most of the newscasts, here's the transcript:

Isis: Guess what my name means
Riordan: Uh... (big grin) stupid, uh, dirty girl (laughter from crowd, pause) No, really what does it mean?
Isis: Egyptian Goddess
Riordan: Wow, nifty.

The governor called the remark "unacceptable in any context," but as you can see from the context, that's not really true. The comment was pretty obviously a joke to anyone over, say, ten years old. For those of you who are (physically or mentally) under ten, the joke was that Isis obviously did not intend for him to actually guess what her name meant.

Riordan obviously did not intend to belittle the child, to imply that she was actually stupid or dirty, or even to tell her what her name meant, and despite what the governor says, there are very few contexts where the comment would not have been acceptable -- older children and teenagers routinely share insults in jest (yes, even with adults), and, I think, would have appreciated the secretary not acting like an up-tight old fogey (generally, only up-tight old fogies appreciate that).

Certainly, Riordan, a venture capitalist whose only qualification for education secretary is well-placed charitable donations, is wholly unqualified for the job, and he has demonstrated quite well that he understands little of the psyche of young children. That being the case, though, I'd rather see him make an out-of-place comment at an unscripted event that to go everywhere with a script and a teleprompter like so many other politicians.

No, the problem is not with Riordan -- the problem is with Schwarzenegar -- not only for appointing an unqualified secretary of education. He called the remark "unacceptable in any context," and than proceeded to do nothing. Again, the remark was not unacceptable in any context, but if the governor believed they were -- shouldn't he have done something about it? The position is appointed by the governor after all.

And if he realized, like a rational adult, that it was all about context, maybe he was just engaging in the old political art, "selective truth manipulation"

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