EDITORIAL: Massachusetts lawmaker wants to take Gen. Hooker’s name off statehouse entrance

We live in the post-satire age. The foot soldiers of Political Correctness have made sure of that.

Take a recent story out of Massachusetts. The local CBS affiliate in Boston reported last week that a state lawmaker has embarked upon a crusade to wipe away a reference in the capital to a Civil War general.

Normally, that might not generate much surprise given the recent brouhaha over Confederate statues and monuments. But Michelle DuBois, a Democratic state representative serving a handful of suburbs south of Beantown, isn’t singling out a military leader who carried the torch for the South and slavery. Instead, she’s upset at a sign acknowledging a Union combatant, Gen. Joseph Hooker.

It seems that, across from a statue of the Union general, the Massachusetts statehouse features a doorway that bears the notation “General Hooker Entrance.”

This is simply too much for Ms. DuBois to bear given that the famous general’s last name has become a synonym for … trigger alert! … a harlot.

“R U a “General Hooker”? she tweeted last week. “Of course not! Yet the main entrance to the Mass State House says otherwise. It’s not all about rape &harassment but also women’s dignity. A “funny” double entendres (sic) misrepresented as respect for a long dead general?”

Oh, my!

“If this isn’t the ultimate in futile, fainting-couch feminism,” writes Elizabeth Nolan Brown of Reason, “I’m not sure what is.”

But as you could probably guess, Ms. DuBois’ pearl clutching is receiving a serious hearing. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker told the CBS affiliate that “the name over the building itself obviously carries a connotation that, if the legislature and others think is an appropriate thing to change, that’s certainly something we’d be willing to talk about.”

All this brings to mind an incident — perhaps apocryphal — involving Samuel Johnson, who released “A Dictionary of the English Language” in 1755. As legend has it, he was subsequently accosted by a finger-waving prude. “I am sorry to see, Dr. Johnson, that there are a few naughty words in your dictionary,” she scolded. He quickly replied, “So, madam, you have been looking for them?”

To steal a line from humorist Dave Barry, you can’t make this stuff up.