I have the feeling I'm missing something here. It would be one thing if she had used the word live on TV, or on some live appearance somewhere where a camera caught it (like, say, George Allen), but all this because she admitted to probably having used it at some point in the distant past? Seriously? The "slave party" thing seems to have been pulled way out of context as well - she's no more guilty of glorifying slavery than anyone else who's ever expressed nostalgia for the old South.

I did some Googling just now, and it does seem like people have searched enough to compile a number of somewhat dubious statements (and supposedly her ex-husband tried to defend her, or shall we say pretended to defend her, with the infamous "some of our best friends are black" ). But ye gods, people, she's 66 and grew up in the Deep South in the fifties. Failing to live up to today's demanding political correct standards, and having an unfortunate tendency towards making things worse when trying to explain, is not enough to make her a racist. Mocking or parodying her faux-pas is one thing, but that succession of companies distancing themselves from her means it's not a joke anymore.

And as for the diabetes thing, I would take that controversy more seriously if there wasn't such a very, very long list of things more harmful to the average American's health than Paula Deen's butter-filled recipes.