CULTURALLY SENSITIVE PRONUNCIATION: IT'S A BIG JOKE ONLY IF DEMOCRATS DO IT

Last night, National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez posted this reader e-mail:

Subject: Liberal elite moment

When Obama says Pock-i-stahn I have an uncontrollable urge to read the New Yorker and find some Chardonnay.

Fortunately I have an old copy of NR and a Coors Light to snap me back to reality.

Seriously though -- no one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It's annoying.

It's true -- Obama says "Pock-i-stan" and McCain doesn't. But McCain says "Kos-o-vuh," which is seen in some circles as the politically correct pronunciation -- check it out in the video of last night's debate, at 59:38. And Obama also says "Tah-lee-ban" -- but so does McCain, at 1:10:28.

But I guess only Obama's pronunciations are elitist.

Oh, and Lopez's colleague Mark Steyn adds this:

Re Senator Obama's ostentatiously exotic pronunciation of Pakistan, one thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says "Eye-raq".

You know why I don't like the fact that Palin says "Eye-raq"? Because I'm Italian -- I'm not "Eye-talian," and I don't appreciate it when people say "Eye-talian." So screw you, Steyn, on behalf of the Iraqi people and my people.

(Via Think Progress.)