September 10, 2008
Broken Man
Though he fronts a party that has tried hard to use the argument that John McCain doesn't have the temperament to be President, it is Barack Obama that seems to be falling apart under pressure:
Barack Obama responded Wednesday to the John McCain campaign's call for an apology concerning his "lipstick on a pig" remarks, by calling the controversy "phony and foolish" and defending it as an "innocent remark" that was taken out of context.Obama said his comment was meant to compare the policies of McCain to those of President Bush, and was in no way a reference to Republican vice presidential Sarah Palin.
Obama accused the McCain campaign of "lies and phony outrage" and "Swift-boat politics." He said the "made-up controversy" was "cat nip for the news media."
The Illinois senator used the pig analogy at a campaign event in Lebanon, Va., on Tuesday while describing his Republican opponents.
"John McCain says he's about change, too, and so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out George Bush.' Except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics … That's not change. That's just calling something the same thing, something different," Obama said.
Oh, where to begin?
How about the accusation being levied by some that Obama's comment prior to the "lipstick" comment above was plagiarized from this Tom Toles cartoon? (h/t reader Andy B.)
Obama has already been accused of stealing lines from Deval Patrick, Mario Coumo, and Cesar Chavez, and chose a Vice Presidential candidate with his own history of oratory theft. If Barack Obama once again appropriated someone else's words, he is going to have some trouble finding credible people to explain it away this time.
As for his initial bad (whether by carelessness or malice) choice of words, the McCain-Palin campaign's charge of purposeful disparagement, and Obama's overly defensive, passive-agressive response, a clearly rattled Obama is becoming his own worst enemy.
Race Man: How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304
The pig gag, if it is a misstatement, is a misstatement of the whole campaign. Surrogates have miraculously conjured the same image as Barry's at varying levels of vitriol. A harmonic convergence is perhaps not out of the question given the known powers of The One.
Posted by: megapotamus at September 10, 2008 12:00 PMI read that even in town hall meetings he has a teleprompter. Was it on the teleprompter.
Posted by: davod at September 10, 2008 12:15 PMI can just imagine President Obama on his travels. The military aid will carry a portable teleprompter instead of the football.
Posted by: davod at September 10, 2008 12:17 PMBut remember - any criticism of zerObama is dog whistle racism.
Posted by: Bandit at September 10, 2008 12:39 PMGiven the past couple of days, it's time to once again ask Obama "The Chicago Question" that he's never adequately answered:
"Who sent you?"
Posted by: MarkJ at September 10, 2008 01:58 PMNice to see that Joe Biden is having a positive effect Obama.
Posted by: James Goneaux at September 10, 2008 02:06 PMI know his people have to be kicking themselves for not putting 18 million female votes on the ticket with him . Would have zeroed out Palin.
Don't be surprized to see biden gone. Their running scared.
Obama is probably not an angry man. But his supporters are for the most part very angry. When he trys to act like they want him to act, he does poorly. They picked the wrong guy.
Posted by: mytralman at September 10, 2008 03:06 PMIt seems the entire "Lipstick on a Pig" story may have been, at least in part, a diversion to take interest away from the the discovery by the NYT that Obama worked on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
The piece is considered “unusually deceptive” and an excellent example of “propaganda” by those familiar with his efforts there, but it could simply be that the writer, Sam Dillon, is primarily a writer about education and unfamiliar with the political implications of the story.
Unexplored was why Obama seems to have left out this job from his resume. Considering Obama has been taking a pummeling for not having any executive experience, this would be an excellent comeback for Obama to all those complaints by McCain and Palin.
Posted by: Neo at September 10, 2008 03:19 PMEr... so basically because Obama outlines the same very obvious policies shared by both Bush and McCain as some cartoon he's plagiarizing?
Are you seriously putting that forward as an argument? That's like saying he's guilty of plagiarizing for using english.
How's about trying to argue his points, and claim that McCain isn't just following in Bush's stumbling footsteps? Oh right... this isn't about issues.
I am not, repeat not, a Barack Obama supporter, but I think there is an explanation for the similarity of speeches delivered by Deval Patrick and Barack Obama. Both speeches were probably written by David Axelrod, the brains behind both campaigns.
Biden, however, copied Kinnick's oratory without attribution.
Posted by: arch at September 10, 2008 04:02 PMBarry knew those words were Toles, but presented them as if they were his own; he mentioned the cartoon in his interview with Olby a few days back.
He lifted them without attributing them to their author. That's plagiarism in most peoples' books.
Posted by: TC@LeatherPenguin at September 10, 2008 04:10 PMneo
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge fiasco was covered by Hugh Hewitt at the end of August (around the 20th), cf http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/f64649ca-5fdc-411c-a056-8c775a953c3d
Forget talking about what poopie-heads he is for calling Palin a poopie-head. What about his association with unrepentant terrorists who were largely responsible for his involvement in politics?
The pressure to make Hiliary do more for Obama is an effort without an opportunity.
Nothing Hiliary does or can do will erase the months of bitter campaigning from voters minds. It’s really hard enough for voters to swallow Hiliary supporting Obama at all. To send her out now to save Obama’s gonads truly is Mission Impossible.
It is up to Obama to make us decide if he is the Messiah or Moses (didn’t get to the Promise Land).
