From the You Can't Make This Shit Up Files

Professional Ding-a-ling Doc Thompson, subbing for Glenn Beck on his radio show today, claimed that the 10% tax on indoor tanning salons included in the healthcare bill to "disincentive the carcinogenic practice of indoor tanning" is actually racism "dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans."

I now too feel the pain of racism. Racism has been dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans. The health care bill the president just singed into law includes a 10% tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don't think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United Stats of America — a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism — why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.

Okay, this is wrong on about a thousand different levels, but the wrongness I love the most is that "light-skinned Americans" constitutes a specific race.

I get the feeling he was sort of smart enough to realize that there are light-skinned people of multiple races who use indoor tanning (though perhaps not smart enough to realize that there are dark-skinned people who use indoor tanning, too), so he didn't want to say "white people." Especially since he certainly knows that anyone ignorant enough to be listening to the Glenn Beck Show in the first place will naturally do his work for him and substitute "white people" right where it belongs, in order to get their grievance on.