Please tell me that Timothy Noah is reaching here. Please tell me that it’s some sort of parody. Satire. Three Stooges.
Anything but what it looks like, which is that he really means that if you say someone is ‘skinny’ you’re using a code word for ‘of color.’
Because if ‘skinny’ = ‘African-American,’ does that mean ‘fat’ is a code word for ‘Caucasian’?
I sure hope Timothy Noah didn’t mean *that,* because if he did I’m gonna haul my fat white rear end down to Slate and complain.
Mom, Interrupted 
I don’t think skinny will be a code word for African American but I think he makes a good point… if you are talking about people being comfortable voting for someone with a physical difference… come on, what’s more “important”… size or color? Really neither should matter BUT I can’t really believe anybody cares about size. In fact, I never really thought of him as skinny… I mean I knew he was thin but I hadn’t really thought about how thin he was until I read this.
The Happy Days episode definitely adds full to the code word thought. I also think the skin in skinny makes it seem worse.
See, I really believe that the original column that Noah is critiquing here was intended as humor and that there’s a group of people (Noah is their leader, apparently) who are willing to go to any length at all to make it about color. Barack brings this stuff up, not McCain…didn’t he say the other day that Republicans looked at him and said, “he doesn’t look like me”?
I can just see the original author sitting around looking for a column idea and thinking, “Hmm. Some people (Obama included, apparently) think that his skin color could be a problem in getting elected. Let’s take that out to the craziest point possible…yeah! We’ll talk about what a beanpole he is, a factor which no one could ever take issue with!”
Honestly: If Timothy Noah hadn’t mentioned the Happy Days episode, would you have remembered it? It’s hardly a fixture in our national zeitgeist.
By the way, I could see voting for Obama in another cycle or two, once I’ve seen what he could do as a Senator. I don’t mind voting for a Democrat; I mind voting when I don’t really know a track record.