I’ve posted the same quotes – which I got from the same friendly PMO source – over at ITQ. But do we know whether there was, in fact, a “corresponding lack of outrage or notice at the time”? Seems to me that one would have to go back to see whether there was, in fact, a negative reaction.

I’m in my 30′s and I’ve never heard that term used as a racial slur.

I’m 40. I have some vague memory of reading it in Br’er Rabbit when I was a kid, but have never heard it used as a racial slur (not denying it can mean that in some regions/cultures, just not in my experience), or even as a metaphor (and it’s an awfully strained one at that, as PP uses it, but I guess that’s another thread).

I’m 32 and I’d never heard of it or known it was a racial slur.

The wikipedia article CR quoted above isn’t very helpful on why it’s a racial slur. Knowing nothing about this, I’d wager the character in Br’er Rabbit is the personification of the figure of speech, not the origin. I don’t know if I quite buy the African origin either. I’d guess at random that it’s an old figure of speech from Days of Yore that then got reapplied, as a racial slur, to African Americans in the South.

There must be another aspect to it, though, which no one seems to be discussing, since Pollièvre on both occasions used it to refer to an unwanted illegitimate child:

“On that side of the House, they have the man who fathered the carbon tax, put it up for adoption to his predecessor and now wants a paternity test to prove the tar baby was never his in the first place.”

So conceivably, guessing from a combination of Pollièvre’s usage and the racial slur angle, it’s used to refer to unwanted child fathered by a white man with a black woman, which apparently would make the illegitimate baby that much more unwanted. But if the racist angle is, as I theorise, new, conceivably Pollièvre (and Hébert) are using an old, non-Southern version, in which the “tar” is not a reference to the poor baby’s skin colour but to some weird folktalish Ye Olde stuff.

Anyway, my two cents. Seems clear that one should not use it, even if blissfully unaware of the racist slur angle: describing an opponent’s policy in terms of unwanted illegitimate children is rather uncouth (is that what Pollièvre means in French, “uncouth”?). Prefer “hot potato.”

Don’t degrade the truth and beauty that is Archie, in it’s 1950s melbatoast splendor.

Not to excuse PP, but i can see how its meant to be sticky with reference to Ignatieff. All the same the remark betrays, as you say, a stunning degree of ignorance and tactlessness. If it were anyone else – it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what PP would have made of a Liberal using this term.
As Don says: ” you play with the bull, you get the horn.” Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!