Lipstick on a Pig
September 10, 2008
How come its only a “made-up controversy” when it involves Obama? I seem to recall some lengthy afternoons spent trying to dispell the rumors that Sarah Palin was both a secret grandmother and a book-burning Church lady, all the while trying to fend off feminists who couldn’t handle a woman making good on equality without embracing comprehensive sex education (the abstinence education thing, also turned out to be a made-up controversy generated by rumormongers and the Daily Kos).
Now the worm turns, and Obama, apparently, has no use for the media now that they are on the attack.
Speaking at a high school in Norfolk, Obama took a few moments to address what he calls “the made-up controversy” of the day, Amie Parnes reports.
Obama said the McCain campaign moved to “seize an innocent remark and take it out of context because they knew it’s catnip for the news media.”
“See, it would be funny, but the news media decided that would be the lead story yesterday. This happens every election cycle. Every four years, this is what we do. This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about…Enough!” he said.
Obama called the attacks “lies, outrage and swift boat politics.”
Somehow, I tend to think this is not just manufactured outrage, but something built from an intense, white-hot envy. Lies, outrage and swift boat politics have been the order of the day for the Obama campaign, though, admittedly, they’ve managed to stay “above the fray” by not openly endorsing the actions of their supporters while reaping the benefits. The campaign and its legions of fans have done little other than attack Palin on ancillary issues, many of not all of which have been eventually proven untrue. Teflon vice presidential candidate she is not, but their impotent attempts have, at the very least, proven their surprise at McCain’s pick. I can’t help but think that McCain came up with the perfect candidate, since she and her own team of fans seem to neutralize nearly every attack. I can imagine that its frustrating, particularly for someone so used to being out of reach of attacks himself.
I don’t think that Obama meant to reference the pit bull line and make an issue out of Palin’s self-definition. Not only do I not give him that much credit, I think if he really meant it, it would have been hammered home as a talking point and not dropped seemingly accidentally in the middle of a fake town hall. He’s not as skilled as he seems, and apparently fails to either think about what he’s saying before he says it, particularly the long-term ramifications, is just completely inartful when speaking off the cuff, or thinks a lot of things are funny that pretty much no one else does. Its a major flaw for a political candidate — almost as bad as a candidate who laughs heartily at his own jokes — because it means that, at some point, he’s just going to be so careless that he’ll step right in a stinky pile neatly stacked in the middle of his path, which is exactly what he did. He just talked, paying no attention to the most pertinent remarks of his opponent, and made a verbal gaffe that could be interpreted in the entirely wrong manner. Rightly or wrongly, he managed to walk himself right into a trap of his own making.
I tend to think this is kind of dumb, since Republicans do this all the time and we get mad when the left makes a big deal about it, but hey, at least we know something now we didn’t know 48 hours ago. Obama’s no good off script.
Posted in Uncategorized
September 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am
i also tend to give obama the benefit of the doubt on this one. as incomprehensibly inarticulate as he can be without his teleprompter, i doubt he actually *meant* to direct the lipstick-on-a-pig comment in mrs palin’s direction; he seems particularly sensitive to the political fallout that follows statements that can be perceived as “character assassination,” and that’s why we’ve seen him deploy surrogates to make all his nasty, dirty, ad hominem claims.
that being said, we’ve known for much longer than the last 48 hours that obama is no master of public speech without his teleprompter. we’ve seen him stumble over breathalysers for the asthmatic, we’ve heard about what he’s learned since having been elected president of the 57 states, and we’ve heard the minutes-long compilation of stuttery “uhm’s” and “uh’s” rush put together after his european adventure.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Yep - the announcement got the left riled up and had them circulating rumors and questions and speculations, much of which has been discredited. I would characterize the response among some as hysterical. Bad move. It gave ammo to people like you. Yep - Sarah has been slimed.
But not by the candidate or by more than a few in the main media. And that is a crucial distinction. Your comparison is not valid.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
[...] There is definitely a lot going on right now in the world (it even looks like the message on the bumper sticker that I had previously covered earlier in the week is spreading to current Congressmen speaking on the House floor…huh), and there are plenty of blogs out there to cover it. [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I certainly rolled my eyes the first time I heard this and thought “it’s just a well-worn figure of speech”. But after the “fishwrap” portion, then it looked more like BO was trying to paint a picture of Palin and McCain.
So here’s another viewpoint:
http://volokh.com/posts/1221024838.shtml
But at the end of the day, yeah, this is just dumb. They really should just ignore the manchild as much as possible and spend their time demonstrating why his policies will stink like old fish after eight years.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Add Geritol and Viagra into the meme pool now too:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/09/10/did-nbc-honcho-suggest-palin-viagra-mcain
Beam us up, Scotty …
September 10th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
The GOP might be legitimately accused of trying to make a pig fly.
All of this sounds like a bunch of kids trying to run a government that is no more than a figure head like the Queen of England. The purpose of Congress and the Senate has become to introduce and pass legislation and regulation on behalf of special interests. The purpose of the President is to sign it into law. The job requirements for any position are not too stringent. You only have to have a lack of intelligence, sex, drugs, greed, or corruption in your background so that you can be controlled.
Job requirements for the media are a little higher. You have to be able to distract the public with pressing issues about sex, drugs, religion, gender, and lipstick while the government does its thing for special interests.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
That’s pretty funny, because Sarah has stayed on a script now since the day she was picked.
Seriously, I hear the same line about that bridge every time she speaks, and it’s not true. There’s freaking video showing it’s not true, and she keeps saying it. She keeps talking about putting the jet up for sale on eBay, and that’s great, but it took an aviation broker to sell it, and the state lost money on the deal.
There is a serious divide between reality and this ticket. I still haven’t heard a real plan from the Palin-McCain ticket (and I say that because at this opint, John’s not even the star of his own show) to deal with the economy. NOTHING. It’s all been, “Oooo, look at us, we’re all mavericky! We hate earmarks!” Well, yay you! Earmarks account for $18 billion of a federal budget that is deficient by over $400 billion dollars. These two could eliminate every earmark, and they’d have succeeded in lopping off a whopping SIX PERCENT from the deficit. Wow, that’s gonna change Washington!
And let’s not forget, Sarah Palin kept the money earmarked to the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, so they don’t have to give it back, she’s currently building a road to where the bridge was supposed to be. The Anchorage Daily News is a great resource for the facts, and they don’t favor Sarah that much.
As is with McCain, the image is a far better story than the truth, and Obama has actually laid out a tax plan that even Business Week said was the better plan economically.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2008/db20080611_220050.htm
Cheers!
September 10th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Does anybody know where Thad can get his very own “I have a man-crush” t-shirt?
September 11th, 2008 at 4:40 am
but it took an aviation broker to sell it, and the state lost money on the deal.
Hey Thad, I’m trading in a 12 year old car and the dealer wants to give me much less than I paid for it. Does that mean I’m going to lose money on the deal? And would it have been better for the state to keep the plane and keep paying thousands of dollars per month in maintenance and storage costs?
If you want a more complete picture of Gov. Palins record on cutting expenditures and earmarks, read this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100927525717663.html?mod=mostpop
Mrs. Palin cut Alaska’s federal earmark requests in half last year, one of the strongest moves against earmarks by any governor. It took real leadership to buck Alaska’s decades-long earmark addiction.
Mr. Obama delivered over $100 million in earmarks to Illinois last year and has requested nearly a billion dollars in pet projects since 2005. His running mate, Joe Biden, is still indulging in earmarks, securing over $90 million worth this year.
Mrs. Palin also killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in her own state. Yes, she once supported the project: But after witnessing the problems created by earmarks for her state and for the nation’s budget, she did what others like me have done: She changed her position and saved taxpayers millions. Even the Alaska Democratic Party credits her with killing the bridge.
September 11th, 2008 at 5:08 am
It really doesn’t matter if ‘lipstick on a pig’ was aimed at Palin or not. I am amazed however, that someone on Team Obama could give such unbelievably short-sighted and BAD political advice to use a phrase like that, knowing full-well how it would be interpreted.
I’d say the larger story is that someone in Obama’s inner circle is very politically inept.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I also take into account the audiance reaction to this lipstick on a pig coment. Hearing them roar at the comment, i think they got the point even if Obama was not trying to make it.