Posted on 09/10/2008 9:15:32 AM PDT by ventanax5
Much of the counter-argument on (a) seems to be that Obama is such a savvy politician it is hard to believe he would intentionally say something so stupid. I just don't think that's an accurate read of the away-from-the-teleprompter Obama we are finally coming to know.
He's not that savvy. He's lucky — which, as they say, ain't nothin'. But he's like a guy who got called up for the World Series after winning the high school championship: now, suddenly, the fields are bigger, the crowds are enormous and more discerning, and the other team is accomplished, professional and comes to beat your brains in — not to provide an exhibition in good sportsmanship.
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
0bama, the candidate for those who vote “present”.
I’m Loath to Disagree with Jay and Yuval ... [Andy McCarthy]
and when I do, my usual course is to backtrack and figure out where I went wrong. But on this one, I do respectfully disagree. Jay is put in mind of the old saying that two wrongs don’t make a right. I look at this more like, can we walk and chew gum at the same time? To me, there are two very different, very easily severable questions on the table: (a) was the Annointed One intentionally taking a shot at Palin with the “lipstick on a pig” remark, and (b) if yes, should we cry in our beer about it like a bunch of bean-counting, race-bating, tree-hugging, metrosexual wusses? The obvious answers are (a) yes and (b) no. I am not afraid that we can’t handle the (b) part with a confident smile and good cheer, so I am not at all wary about acknowledging (a).
Much of the counter-argument on (a) seems to be that Obama is such a savvy politician it is hard to believe he would intentionally say something so stupid. I just don’t think that’s an accurate read of the away-from-the-teleprompter Obama we are finally coming to know.
He’s not that savvy. He’s lucky — which, as they say, ain’t nothin’. But he’s like a guy who got called up for the World Series after winning the high school championship: now, suddenly, the fields are bigger, the crowds are enormous and more discerning, and the other team is accomplished, professional and comes to beat your brains in — not to provide an exhibition in good sportsmanship.
Obama must react to this drastic change, but he is not as smooth as advertised, he simply does not have a well of experience to draw on, and, importantly, the Democrat nomination campaign did not prepare him. He has always had very obvious weaknesses, but the Democrat candidates could not exploit them because their nomination cannot be won without appealing to a hard-Left base which is night-and-day different from the vast majority of the country. They play a hardcore identity politics and they would crucify anyone who so much as hinted that a young, black community organizer with movement-activist (i.e., terrorist) friends and a record of protecting a woman’s right to choose even into the 4th trimester was not an ideal candidate.
Hillary, who would otherwise have been acceptable to the base, could not exploit Obama’s biggest vulnerabilities. She couldn’t go after him on terrorism because of the Clinton record of feckless counterterrorism and the pardons of Weather Underground and FALN terrorists (FWIW, that was my point in this piece). And she couldn’t go after him on his rise from the seamy world of Chicago politics because of, well, see 1992-2000. But realize that, even with her hands tied behind her back in this way, Hillary would still have beaten him had the race gone on another month or so.
Even as he mathematically eliminated the competition, Obama was sinking like a stone because, as we’re seeing now, he doesn’t wear well over time. Yuval and Jay are entirely right to suggest that he unintentionally says dumb things (e.g., 57 states). Yet, the Chicago pol in him quite intentionally says a lot of offensive things (cling to guns and religion, punished with a baby, lipstick on a pig ...). He has not been swift enough to discern the change in the audience. This is a guy who, up til now, had to appeal to (1) an ultra-Left Chicago district, (2) the 7 in 10 Illinois residents who just wanted Alan Keyes to go away, and (3) the Democrats’ antiwar base. They gave him such a warm glow maybe he was duped into thinking everyone would love his routine. In any event, this is his first conversation with America and he’s not ready for prime-time. Plus, he is in the unenviable position of having to pose as a post-racial, post-partisan centrist when his record is one of race-conscious, left-wing partisanship. It’s only natural that when he gets rattled and is not reading a script, he reverts to Hyde Park.
A primary season like the modern Democratic Party has is an exercise in unreality. It molds the candidate into something attractive to a fringe that is unrepresentative of the country at large. When Obama moved from that sandbox to the real playing field, he wasn’t ready. In a panic, he sensed the need to turn to an old Washington pro — and somehow managed to find a pro, Biden, who shares some of his own worst foot-in-mouth tendencies (and has not been able to shake that congenital problem in his three dozen senate years). The result? It’s only been a week and they have already suggested that they will order banana-republic style prosecutions of Bush administration officials, that Palin — mother of a special needs child — doesn’t care about special needs children, and, now, lipstick on a pig.
This is exactly what it looks like: amateur hour. We should say so, and have fun with it.
I believe it was intentional with the double meaning.
Remember when BHO gave Hillary the middle finger Will Smith style. He could claim that he was scratching an itch, but his audience screamed with delight. And Barack had that sly smile when he reached the crowd—not a normal reaction to just scratching.
Either Obama is a low-class, vindictive political operator, or he is a rank amateur with no business running for national office. I say he is the complete package. He is both of the above.
Great column! I pray that the voters see through the haze, and recognize he isn’t ready for prime-time.
Important to not ever forget this part:
"Hillary, who would otherwise have been acceptable to the base, could not exploit Obama's biggest vulnerabilities. She couldn't go after him on terrorism because of the Clinton record of feckless counterterrorism and the pardons of Weather Underground and FALN terrorists (FWIW, that was my point in this piece)."
Barack Obama does NOTHING UNINTENTIONALLY.
He chose his remark with purpose and got the reaction needed.
He should be ignored and shunned by the McCain camp.
I personally would like to see a laundry list of their proposed CHANGES from both sides of the aisle.
The media who aren’t very deep seems to concentrate on the candidate who has the smarmiest comebacks to fill in their expensive hours.
Let’s have some on the job messages from the candidates please. In other words: WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO FOR US??
I remember the group The Monkees. I was young and they came to Chicago. THey lipsincked their songs and had a back up band actually playing for them...Totally phony.
Obama is a made for TV movie. He’s a persona, a mirage. Once you get to know him, the plain comes through.
He has no business being president. He ran for the office thinking ahead to 8 years from now, after serving in the senate he’d be a formidable candidate.
Problem is, he won Iowa... Turned some heads, and then got the Opra and Kennedy nod...and he actually started to believe he could pull this one off...
Axelrod, managed him like the colonol managed Elvis, keeping him under raps.
Sarah Palin, runs the same risk too, but I think the more we hear and see of her, the more we’ll like her...
She speaks plainly. SHe phrases her sentences WITHOUT the vocalized pauses, because she is a natural speaker and she’s been trained.
I think if she’s asked a question, like who is the prime minister of Kat Mandu...She’d probably say... “don’t know, can you tell me?”
Tony Blankley said the same thing last night.
We're beginning to see that the REAL Obama has a pretty short fuse if he, himself is being targeted, he's also, really, really thin-skinned...and takes personal offense if anyone DARES criticize him.
-PJ
At first I thought the “pig/lipstick was a very unfortunate choice of words. But later on that day I saw where Russ Carnahan (D MO) in introducing Joe Biden said, in reference to Palin’s record ““There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick,”.
Two references to lipstick on the same day from the same campaign...definitely meant as a smear on Palin.
This statement from him yesterday was either a planned one or off the cuff this is a war of words.Their words are used very carefully chosen most times and sometimes they go off script he knew what he was saying.
Well I’d be the last to defend Obama when it comes to his political savvy, but in the lipstick case he was both stupid and calculating. If you watch the video of his lipstick comment it is obvious that it was planned, and that he intended it to be taken by his audience exactly as it was taken.
First he set it up by talking about how that McCain and the Republicans say one thing and then call it another, but in such difficult terms that he could barely get it words out, and then when he got to the lipstick comment, it came out smoothly as if that is what he was getting to from the very first.
Second he made the comment in this way: “You can put lipstick on a pig ... [long pause waiting for laughter which expectedly came] but it will still be a pig.” The pause is a rhetorical device used by comics to allow an audience time to catch a vague joke.
Unlike the setup which was halting, he pulled the joke off perfectly, as if practiced. Either way it shows that he has a dense spot in his head when it comes to understanding how real America thinks.
There is absolutely no way Obama made that comment without knowing how it would be perceived. If he did, he is even more clueless than he seems.
You are right. If you watch the video you see him pause so the crowd can laugh, then there are some boos - the crowd got it all right. He goes on to say "That's all right" as if he is forgiving the people booing.
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