Today in dog-whistle racism.

Raw Story:

The disgraced former Republican governor of South Carolina on Sunday used a racially-coded term in his prediction that the nation’s first African-American president would go on attack and “throw a lot of spears” at Tuesday’s town hall debate.

Former Gov. Mark Sanford — now a Fox News contributor — told Fox News host Shannon Bream that President Barack Obama would have to be much more aggressive during the next debate because Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was seen as dominating the first encounter.

“Obama’s going to come out in this case much more forcefully, and he’s going to throw a lot of spears,” Sanford opined. “And I think it’s very, very important that in this case that, you know, Romney stay focused on his vision for the country and stay focused on the things that, I think, matter most to people in this country, which is, where is the economy going, where are we with jobs, and what’s happening next on the debt and the deficit issue?”

“Completely coincidentally, and not at all related to this, the term ‘spearchucker’ is a racial slur against black people, but what would a 52-year-old white guy from South Carolina know about that?” Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher writes. “Also, he didn’t call President Obama a ‘spearchucker,’ he just said he would be throwing spears. That’s completely different.”

Look, I’m not saying that Sanford’s a clownish, corrupt, skirt-chasing southern cracker in the tradition of Boss Hogg. I’m just saying that he’s a buffoonish, dirty, skirt-pursuing whip-wielder like you might see on reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard — which isn’t the same thing at all, because I’m using different words. He couldn’t possibly find any of that offensive now, because synonyms of offensive terms are safe to use.