Lipstick-Gate

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/10/joe-biden-questions-obamas-judgment...

Joe Biden questions Obama's judgment
By Michelle Malkin ? September 10, 2008 05:58 PM He means it. "Frankly" and "sincerely." We believe you, Joe:

Transcript:

[MSNBC's] SEN. JOE BIDEN: Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. She is say close personal friend and qualified to be president of the United States of America. She is easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me, but she is first-rate. I mean that sincerely.

Yes, Joe Biden is questioning Barack Obama's judgment out loud.

The Palin effect. Savor it.

***

Eagleton?

Comments
Comment pages: « 1 [2]

#101On September 10th, 2008 at 8:24 pm, travlinman said:
If Biden is found shot 27 times in the head with a single shot, .44 Mag pistol in his 'weak' hand, sitting with a clean suicide note pinned to his back, in Ft. Marcy Park on a park bench with no blood on or around him, I think that Obama needs to "one-up" McCain and put a lesbian on the ticket. It might just be time for Oprah to "come out dat closet, girl"! Gayle could become the 1st, First Butch, since Eleanor Roosevelt.

No matter what happens, I just can't see Hillary on the ticket with Obama. I mean, Barack would be afraid to eat or drink anything on the campaign trail or at the White House if they won, and might succomb to his sudden onset of anorexia. His disorder would most likely be rooted in a fear of poisoning, not a fear of looking fat.

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/10/joe-biden-questions-obamas-judgment...

Joe Biden questions Obama's judgment
By Michelle Malkin ? September 10, 2008 05:58 PM He means it. "Frankly" and "sincerely." We believe you, Joe:

Transcript:

[MSNBC's] SEN. JOE BIDEN: Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. She is say close personal friend and qualified to be president of the United States of America. She is easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me, but she is first-rate. I mean that sincerely.

Yes, Joe Biden is questioning Barack Obama's judgment out loud.

The Palin effect. Savor it.

***

Eagleton?

Comments
Comment pages: « 1 [2]

#101On September 10th, 2008 at 8:24 pm, travlinman said:
If Biden is found shot 27 times in the head with a single shot, .44 Mag pistol in his 'weak' hand, sitting with a clean suicide note pinned to his back, in Ft. Marcy Park on a park bench with no blood on or around him, I think that Obama needs to "one-up" McCain and put a lesbian on the ticket. It might just be time for Oprah to "come out dat closet, girl"! Gayle could become the 1st, First Butch, since Eleanor Roosevelt.

No matter what happens, I just can't see Hillary on the ticket with Obama. I mean, Barack would be afraid to eat or drink anything on the campaign trail or at the White House if they won, and might succomb to his sudden onset of anorexia. His disorder would most likely be rooted in a fear of poisoning, not a fear of looking fat.

What I want to see is less rhetoric and --- dare I say it? Humility?

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment?this was the time?when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Right out of the Rove playbook. Attack, and deflect.

Yes, it was clear what Obama was actually saying, and I thought it was actually quite clever way of using Palin's own description of herself, but then I like plays on words and can appreciate cleverness like this, but most people won't actually listen or read to find the context of what Obama was saying.

Obama is making a mistake, however, alluding to Palin even indirectly- it is just feeding the attention that she has garnered from everyone, especially the media and even other Democrats. Keep the focus solely on McCain. Even Biden should ignore Palin completely. This entire news cycle today was Palin coast to coast.

"You can put lipstick on a pig..."

Obama tends to be fairly precise and nuanced, unfortunately and all too often at the expense of clarity and brevity.

If Obama's remarks were directed at Palin, he surely would have said "You can put lipstick on a sow...". Palin has, after all, shown herself to be a queen porker.

It was interesting to watch - and I think your description is very accurate - even Levin had come around, yes?

Pigs in mud. "I can't believe we're getting away with this!"

Yancey, you really think there's a 50% chance of Biden withdrawing from the race? An event so rare there's only one example in living memory, an event summed up by a single word—Eagleton—that is widely seen to have doomed its campaign? 50%? Really?

And to reinforce the uniformity of its noise machinations, NRO's The Corner does not post reader comments. Its crew selects comments that reinforce approved opinion. Groupthink at its best.

Hey, I was on the right track two days ago...

from the "Expectations Game" post,

She described herself as a pit bull with lipstick

Oh, I misheard. I thought she was the lipstick on the pig that is McCain's platform.

Posted by: ckelly on 09/08/08 at 4:24 PM Respond

I think it was pretty clear from the way the audience reacted when Obama said "lipstick" that it struck a cord with them unrelated to the actual meaning of the phrase. But so what? For 200 years presidential candidates and their running mates have been poking fun at things there opponents say in speeches. Now all of a sudden he can't do that because his opponent is a woman? Give me a break.

I too, checked out NRO's Corner today and was stunned at the high density of "pig posts". Didn't count them (thanks for the info, Kevin!).

This is getting so crazy that I'm really beginning to wonder what the campaign will be like by early-mid October.

Obama is making a mistake, however, alluding to Palin even indirectly- it is just feeding the attention that she has garnered from everyone, especially the media and even other Democrats. Keep the focus solely on McCain. Even Biden should ignore Palin completely. This entire news cycle today was Palin coast to coast.

I don't know that I've ever agreed with anything Yancey Ward has said before. He's exactly right on this one.

I am extremely irritated and frustrated right now. However, I am going to try and make a reasoned argument.

I just don't get it at all. Senator Obama made a comment that at least the audience that was present, thought was a reference to Ms. Palin. Anybody here who wants to argue that the audience did not think that, should just watch the video and look at their reaction. They knew who he was referring to.

My first thought was shock followed by sadness. I though it was either a mistake, or a poorly chosen joke which sounded funny when written, but did not work in its context. It saddened me because, I know how the career of George Allen had been ruiined by a "macaca" throw away line at a rally. I want McCain to win this election because I believe he is the best for this country. I want the campaign to be above the cheap shot. I was saddened to see the election, which I thought would be over because of this stupid comment by Obama, to be decided in such a bizarre manner.

I immediately went perusing center, left, and right, blogs. A majority of the comments were in shock just as I was. Many of the commenters, who were obviously democrats, were disgusted with Obama, hoping it was a mistake.

I thought the McCain campaign should remain silent, however they felt that they needed to demand an apology. I expected that perhaps sanity could be back to the election race, if Obama offered a humble apology, and agreed with McCain to rise above this type of stupid rhetoric.

What a difference 24 hours makes. Obama doesn't apologize, instead he says that McCain's camp is attacking him. He says he is the victim, and claims that he is above this type of divisive politics. Driving home, I hear NPR which is usually quite balanced. It covers the story by first telling how Barack Obama is reacting to the attack of McCain. They don't put on any spokesman for McCain, all they play is Obama's statement about how divisive the Republicans are. This mantra which is not true, is repeated over and over. It becomes the truth. It did not start out as the truth, It was said enough that in 24 hours it has become the truth.

Its just too bad George Allen did not have friends in the media who were in the tank for him. He might still be in politics.

Now, we see Kevin Drum, who did not post on it all yesterday even though it was all over the web, speaking about how he was only vaguely aware of it. And claiming that all reasonable people did not think it was a slur, but "talked themselves into it, if they could get a way with it". This is just an absurd statement. I know things look different in print, then they look when said. Go back, watch the video. People who were there at the time, definitely thought it was a slur. Compare the video of George Allen saying "macaca". (Where no one who was present reacted to it because it was just an unfortunate choice of words of the moment ), to the reaction to Obama's statement. If you are honest, you have to realize, that in one case ( George Allen ) the non-reaction of the crowd shows that it was no slur. In the other case ( Obama ) the people understood it right away to be a deliberate attack.

I am frustrated because Obama, ( with the help of the in the tank media ) is turning, his stupid macaca moment into something totally different. He makes it seem like an attack on him and then he pretends to take the high road.

One of the reasons I think Sarah Palin is good for this country is she truly is a reformer. Is she perfect, No. Has she allowed the Republican campaign machine to shade the truth on the BTNW so she can tell a good line. Yes. Has she had trouble in her family life, yes.

But did she as a Republican, take on corrupt people in the corrupt Republican party of Alaska and defeat them. Yes. Does Mike Gravel, a man who was too far left for the Democrats, and has virtually no agreement with Palin on any issue, defend her as a good, honest, person, yes. Was she able to defeat the corrupt former Govenor. Yes. Was she able to bring down the most corrupt man in the senate, Ted Stevens, not yet. But someone else has done that with an indictment. Lets all be agreed that the senate will be better off without that corrupt individual, even if it means one less vote for my side.

Point to me any time that Obama, a Democrat from Chicago, for heavens sake, ever stood up against the corruption in his own party.

Now we see why such little reform actually gets accomplished. People like many of the commenters here, go along with all the slime merchants on your side.. And, I;m said to say there have also been a lot of people on my side who went along with the slime merchants from the right.

Well, I think Sarah Palin still has a chance of pulling it off. There may just be enough people who like Republican policies and realize she is a real reformer, not just a talker, to help her win. Otherwise, we will just have the same old thing. What seems obvious to me is that Palin is the real deal, and Obama, is just another Chicago politician. It is sad.

BBC columnist tells it like it is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/7609440....

Anybody here who wants to argue that the audience did not think that, should just watch the video and look at their reaction. They knew who he was referring to.

And you know this because of your special mind reading powers? Or because the only thing that elicits mild laughter from an audience when commenting on lipstick and pigs are hilarious unspecified thoughts of Sarah Palin? Your entire argument rests on a strained interpretation for which you can provide not even the thinnest of justifications. It rests, in fact, entirely on the notion that you can somehow traverse the incredibly complex pathways between what he said and some mysterious thing that he obviously meant, which you haven't clarified, based upon your assessment of the audience reaction on a videotape.

As has been pointed out in many places by now, this is a phrase that McCain himself often uses. There is video of him using it in almost precisely the same way and also receiving laughter in his usage. Note that he never actually gets to the punchline: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHlIfOTS1c&feature=iv

Now it is pretty clear to me that he is not talking about Clinton or Palin in that statement. He is talking about policy. That is clear to me because that is in the plain meaning of his words and because I don't pretend to be able to read the minds of the audience in interpreting those words. To attempt to make the argument that he was making some nebulous reference to Clinton would be both dishonest and somewhat laughable in its own right.

But whatever. Here is my unsolicited advice to you. Make this argument far and wide. Please tie all of your credibility and your deeply wounded sensibilities to your tortured interpretation of this entirely unremarkable and common phrase. Unfortunately, I can already see that Republican spokespeople are starting to back off from this particular bit of foolishness but I hope they change their minds and keep trying to push it as hard as they can. I believe that they, and you, have chosen a bridge too far on this one but good luck.

McCain was a POW. Now he has a POW (Palin Of Wasilla).

John Hansen -- Obama made a statement using the same phrasing McCain has used many times. The McCain campaign then chose to elevate it to a national issue. Where was your outrage when McCain used the same phrase, or worse? On that score, your appeal "reasoned argument" is demonstrably bullshit.

As to your argument that Palin is a "true reformer"... Her tenure as mayor of Wasilla certainly doesn't support that assertion. Her primary claim to fame as a reformer is her tenure on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and her subsequent election as a governor on a "clean government" stance.

Yet, Palin subsequently supported Stevens and Young, and still does AFAIK. Her call for "reform" of earmarks came only after it was obvious the political tides had turned; she was demonstrably for them before she was against them.

It's clear that as Palin has become more invested in the process, and has more to lose, her claim to being a reformer has paled. By any other description, a pol, and far from the "good, honest, person" you suggest--at least on the political stage. No, she's not a pig in lipstick, just a very opportunistic pit bull.

As to Obama, if you bothered to read the history of his involvement in Illinois politics, you'd know he pissed off more than a few of the entrenched power brokers. Moreover, that the best the McCain campaign can dig up is a tenuous Ayers connection--and that Obama has otherwise managed to stay clean in the cesspool of Illinois politics--speaks volumes. And of course he pissed of many in his own party with his last FISA vote.

You think Palin is the great hope? Fine; vote for her. But spare us the appeal to "reasoned argument" when you offer no more than recycled pig shit.

And give it a rest that it wasn't the Obama campaign that called Bill a racist. Of course they didn't do it directly. They had their surrogates do it.

Name one.

And that, my friends, is how it's done in the big leagues. It's the noise machine at work...

TRUE YES but they need the MSM to go along with it - the good thing was many of the headlines today (gone now) quoted Obama as calling it "phony outrage"

To point out that it wasn't very surprising that Obama won, given that 90% of the black voters would vote for the black candidate and black voters were a large percentage of the overall vote in SC? That's not racism, that's arithmatic.

I won't bother addressing your blithe and entirely inaccurate assumption that black candidates are somehow guaranteed 90% of the black vote as a matter of "arithmetic." The more important issue is that with what seems to be a habitual lack of precision on your part, you've managed to get the entire story confused.

My suggestion would be to go back and reread the context and sequence of Clinton's remarks. The question was not why Obama won SC. The question was why Obama was such a tough opponent: Why did it take both Clinton's to beat him? Clinton's answer was: well he won SC but so after all, so did Jesse Jackson.

Now I have no particular interest in arguing about whether or not that statement was definitively racist and neither did the Obama campaign. I doubt you and I have anything like a shared vocabulary on the issue of race and its quite far OT anyway. But the point is that the broader outline of what Clinton was saying is really pretty clear and it pretty directly addressed Obama's race. I doubt even Clinton would try to pretend otherwise.

Obviously Obama's remark referred to McCain's campaign dressing up old policies in new wrappings, and not to Palin at all....

... but the point could be made that Palin is the lipstick, the cosmetic, applied to make McCain's tired old campaign look better.

John Hansen said, "And give it a rest that it wasn't the Obama campaign that called Bill a racist. Of course they didn't do it directly. They had their surrogates do it. But you'd have to be a moron to believe that it didn't come directly or indirectly from the campaign itself."

Then when challenged to name one he stated "Josh Marshal".

Just to be extremely clear to John Hansen or any other idiots that might like to parrot this line, by this standard John McCain is responsible for every piece of idiocy and racist filth to come from NRO, LGF, Redstate.org or other rightwing blogs. You really, really, really don't want to start down that path.

"conservatives are falling all over themselves to pretend to be stupider than they actually are." - Daryl mc

They know their base. One of them really liked my 'Bush Cheney 1984' sticker. He said he wants to peel off Obama stickers whenever he sees one.

No one is stupider than this group. In the future no one will ever loose an election by underestimating the intelligence of the average American.
Red Rover- 'roger that'.

I see John Hansen had a big fat breakfast at Drum's this morning.

Meanwile I bet Yancey Ward a gazillion dollars that Obama will not swap Biden out for Clinton for VP. Shake?