Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Lipstick -- UPDATE: "Phony outrage"


(Feel free to use this image as you please.)

UPDATE: When Team McCain made fair political use the controversy, Obama responded with the words "Spare me the phony outrage." After the crap the Obots have pulled during this election season -- "Fairy tale," the RFK smear -- I would say that the Obama Nation has zero right to talk about phony outrage. Phony outrage is their shtick.

Barack Obama saying "Spare me the phony outrage" is like Tommy Chong saying "Stop acting like a stoner."

Except...

In this case, it ain't phony.

Look at the video. After the lipstick remark,Obama gives one of those familiar half-repressed grins. The crowd's reaction clearly indicates that they consider his comment as a jibe against Palin. He pauses for that reaction, just to make sure that they get it.

Incidentally, by what right does Barack Obama denounce Rove-style politics? By what right can he ascribe such politics to John McCain, who has -- so far -- run the cleanest campaign I've seen in many cycles?

(His comments were cribbed -- word for word -- from a Washington Post cartoon. Why is Obama allowed to plagiarize when others are not?)

We saw an exactly similar scenario when Obama, ever the class act, gave Hillary the "fuck you" finger. On that occasion as well, the videotaped crowd reaction says it all, giving the lie to later attempts to later attempts to explain away the gesture as an accident:


Admit it. The man's personal resentments are always roiling beneath a thin veneer of civilized behavior. Nixon, too, was a seething mass of personal resentments, but he usually knew how and when to hide them.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obama flips Hillary the bird, no doubt about it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoOFp-RDpvM

Anonymous said...

Yes, this is the *official* beginning of the end for the Obama campaign. Of course, all of us knew months ago that Obama would have problems winning the general election. I'm glad that this is becoming pretty clear to most people now. Obama and his supporters have completely self-destructed over Palin. I won't be surprised if polls in the next week show an even greater shift of women from Obama to McCain. No woman likes to be called a pig or watch a presidential nominee go after their own in the same manner.

Anonymous said...

Is it my paranoia or is the comment about stale fish even worse? That's the standard frat boy taunt for shaming girls and it made my hair stand on end.

Citizen K said...

I love that shade of red! So do you think Obama was referring to Palin with that comment, and not Bush's failed policies? "Lipstick on a pig" is a common enough expression. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=putting+lipstick+on+a+pig

Joseph Cannon said...

"Lipstick on a pig" is of course a common expression, but in context, I think Obama was making a sly reference to Palin's "lipstick" joke.

Besides, if Clinton's "fairy tale" remark can be interpreted as racist, then turnabout is fair play. You get as you give.

katiebird said...

The "lipstick on a pig" line carried double meaning -- just like the time Obama "scratched" his face with his middle finger.

Reading the quote in strict context it refers to McCain Policies. But, it's clear that both the phrase and the face-scratching-gesture had a dual meaning AND the audience appreciated that second meaning quite a bit.

Like a trouble-boy in Middle School, Obama has "cover." The innocent will be astonished that anyone would take offense at anything so trivial. But, any parent of a trouble-boy (or girl) and any Middle School teacher won't be fooled. Obama is mocking Palin in the exact same belittling way he mocked Hillary.

I heard him talk about Palin's experience as the "Mayor of Wasilly" -- I think there's nothing Obama likes more than mocking people.

Oh, and just yesterday mister and I were remembering that the very first time our trouble-boy got in trouble (he was 12). A guy in the next desk over whispered that our-boy's girlfriend "smelled like a fish." Our-boy got up and tossed the guy over -- chair and all.

Obama better watch out. Hillary was protecting the Democratic Party throughout the primaries and that held her back. I'm REALLY interested to see how McCain -- a guy with nothing to protect except his running mate -- responds to crɒp like this.

Styria said...

http://www.websophist.com/Biden_LipstickPontifFinger.jpg

Here's lipstick on a pig.

Anonymous said...

I may actually wear lipstick for the first time in YEARS when I go to vote.

Anonymous said...

Oh no, the outrage from the McCain campaign. How can you refer to putting lipstick on a pig when talking about the policies of a female politician?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8IhMMhe8w

Anonymous said...

There is an article over at savagepolitics.com with this, lipstick on a pig, as the lead in. It goes on to discuss "the other half of Obama's brain", a woman named Valerie Bowman. Check it out, the plot thickens.

Anonymous said...

If you can stand reading Murdoch's NY Post, here is something insightful:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09102008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/why_bams_flailing_128293.htm

Anonymous said...

The article in Savage Politics is ridiculous. It claims that Valerie Jarrett is "Iranian" because she was born in Iran. She is not Iranian. Her parents are both American, one is black, I believe.

That's like saying that Julie Christie is Indian because she was born in India.

Countries like Iran and India don't have birthright citizenship. Or birthright nationhood.

CognitiveDissonance said...

John McCain has just thrown this comment back in Obama's face. No Quarter has 2 new ads that he just put out today. One really slams him for the sexism and calls it for what it is. The other slams him for sending 30 lawyers to Alaska to dig up dirt. Looks like McCain, unlike our own party, is going to defend his female running mate. Good for him! This should make Obama's numbers drop even further.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous: no you are not being paranoid. I thought the same thing. This is getting embarassing. I'm moving closer to voting Green every day....

Obama is such an oaf he doesn't get the fact that Palin's lipstick joke was meant to be charmingly self-deprecating. I mean, a pit bull isn't exactly pretty. But Obama doesn't do self-deprecating, does he?

I think Cannon should run a contest - what was the best anti-Obama line of The Speech? For my money it was this:

"But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot -"

Link:
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/515148.html

Oh sister!

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMPYkNQlJMM

McCain talking about Hillary's health care plan...

The only difference is that Obama was not talking about Palin at all ! he was talking about McCain economic plan.

gary said...

I can't believe you're mentioning fingergate again. Video from another angle clearly showed Obama scratching his face with TWO fingers. As for the lipstick on a pig reference, OK it may have been a sly reference to Palin's lipstick reference but so what?

Joseph Cannon said...

Gary, you're a lying motherfucker.

You too, anon.

Give it up, guys. The video record proves what I said. The crowd's reaction proves it. Obama WAS giving the finger. And yes, he did mean "lipstick" as a dig against Palin -- why else would he pause to make sure that the crowd got his subtext?

The fact that McCain and others (including myself) have used the phrase "lipstick on a pig) in other contexts is meaningless.

Sage said...

If it had just been the lipstick on a pig comment I might have given him a pass, but then he referred to stinking fish. Sarah Palin's nickname is barracuda. So, of all the analogies he could have come up with he accidentally and coincidentally chooses one with lipstick and one with fish? Please, this ain't my first rodeo.

Mountain Sage

jsm said...

Ron Paul is running for president.

Lipstick on Ocain.

Anonymous said...

"why else would he pause to make sure that the crowd got his subtext?"

That is an interesting observation that I haven't seen elsewhere.

I could interpret it alternatively:
that he really didn't mean the comment as a dig at Palin personally, he was just taking ownership of this well-worn phrase AS A RESULT OF HER joking reference to pit-bulls and lipstick.

Then the audience took it as an insult against Palin. This happens a lot, and Obama is a master at playing with the crowd. They took it as an insult against Palin, and he delightedly played along with it.

Which is every bit as bad as meaning it in the first place.

You know, it's kind of like seeing a lynching and then deciding you'll participate. You don't have to have lit the first match.

gary said...

So, you call me a "lying motherfucker" and then don't post my very measured response, with a link to the video and photos that prove my statement? If you didn't like my comment then you sure as hell wouldn't have liked my first draft.I remember when you kept threatening to give up blogging and I tried to talk you out of it. My mistake.

Joseph Cannon said...

I've seen your video before and it proves my point.

Let's do this like Costner-as-Harrison in JFK:

PAUSE -- THE CROWD'S REACTION
PAUSE -- THE CROWD'S REACTION
PAUSE -- THE CROWD'S REACTION

I insulted you deliberately. For two reasons:

1. NOW do you you see the problem with the strategy of using insult to convert? NOW do you see why the blame for the PUMA movement rests with Obama supporters, not with "racism"? NOW do you see it, you dumb motherfucker?

2. Anyone who can examine a videotape and convince himself that he is not seeing the obvious reminds me of the dumb motherfuckers who could look at the Z-Film and convince themselves that they were seeing a sot from the TSBD.

PAUSE -- THE CROWD'S REACTION
PAUSE -- THE CROWD'S REACTION
PAUSE -- THE CROWD'S REACTION

It's PAINFULLY obvious. No further discussion -- at least not on THIS site. And unless you're gonna write a book (which you won't) my version, the true version, will be carried into history. CASE CLOSED.