Slip of the Lip?

On Saturday, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney talked a little bit about Boston's "Big Dig":

"The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can," he told a crowd of about 100 supporters in Ames, Iowa.

Actually, the best thing politically would be for politicians to stop using the phrase "tar baby". And you'd think that every politician would have learned this lesson two months ago when WH Press Secretary Tony Snow used it and got a bit beat up over it.

And yes, argue all you want about whether this should be seen as a racist expression in the first place, and be sure to include all the usual denunciations of "political correctness" in the process. But the point to remember is that "tar baby" does offend a lot of people, so it seems to me that the only reason a person would have for using it is: a) stupidity; or b) actively wanting to piss people off by making them think you're a racist. I'll give Mitt the benefit of the doubt and accept that it was a).