Bitches and fags, oh my.

• Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Position: Comments made about Barney Frank and Hillary Clinton - Column

At first it was easy to believe Dick Armey when he said he had merely "stumbled" in referring to Barney Frank as "Barney Fag." The two words are, after all, more similar than they look. Who has not, at some point, evoked good-natured chuckles from the wait person by inadvertently ordering "fags and beans"? Or one recalls the sad fate of several of Frank Sinatra's former associates, consigned to the depths in cement shoes for an innocent slip of the tongue.

But within hours Armey had flipped into insensate rage, shouting, red-faced and with quivering EPs, that he had "simply mispronounced a name and did not need any psychoanalysis about my subliminal or about my Freudian predilections."

Which is worse, anyway: to be called "Fag" if you are in fact "Frank" or to be accused of harboring predilections of the "subliminal" variety if you are in reality a Republican from Texas? In less time than it takes to pronounce the curiously Freudian French unit of currency, the victimizer had become the victim; the insulter was now the insultee.

This is the famed counter-victim flip, which now enlivens our political culture. Its appeal is obvious.

Think of all the times you have accidentally elbowed some elderly or pregnant person to the ground in the course of boarding the bus or train. Think of the nasty aftermath, the clumsy apologies, the possible fines. How much nicer it would sound, when recounted to friends and family, if that elderly or pregnant person turned out to have been trampled while inexplicably assaulting you!

For a particularly elegant counter-victim flip, consider the one performed by Newt Gingrich following his mom's revelation to Connie Chung that he has been known to refer to the First Lady as a "bitch." A clear-cut case of rudeness, you might think, until the counter-rudeness maneuver was brought into play. With trembling jowls, a rich spray of spittle, and other hallmarks of righteous Republican rage, Newt went after the wily Chung for allowing such a low word to be uttered in the presence of his or any mother, never mind that she had done the uttering herself. Presumably he had only spelled it out when mom was around, or thought she would take it as a harmless reference to...