I bet his minders smiled through gritted teeth as soon as they heard Obama wing it with this:
"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin's joke. "It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."
The democrats are in a difficult position. It appears the Republicans and right wing blogosphere can indulge in their smears and character assasinations (Obamanation bullshit etc) and have it accepted but Obama can't return fire. The joke sounds inept but preferable to the smarmy nonsense from the Republican VP candidate. I was astonished at the vitriol dished out by Republican's at their convention and then to hear the piffle about change and ending partisan lobby driven politics.
ReplyDeleteIt is painful even at this distance to have McCain renege on every criticism of the Republican main stream he used to have and then still say he is a maverick. I'm afraid he will turn out to be the most deeply compromised politician America has ever seen and certainly unfit of any office.
So depressing.
Geoff
Hmm. If you think Palin/McCain are not the subject of smear and character assasination, I can only assume you don't spend any time on the left wing blogosphere. Try Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and even Huffington Post for starters.
ReplyDeleteAs for vitriol: seems you are unduly sensitive to ridicule of Obama, which was the tactic used at the convention. Pretty deftly too, I thought. I mean, let's face it, Obama has had a dream run with the media yet is surely the most under-qualified Presidential candidate we've ever seen. I don't say that Palin would be overly qualified either, but at least she's not running for the top job.
If she did become President, one would have to hope that the executive team would get her through. But that is pretty much what we know Obama will be doing: he's pretty clearly still learning up on foreign policy issues for example. For the moment he's just getting by with "I'll talk more with everyone" line.
Put it this way.. at this remove it seems the Republicans have hoisted hypocricy to such dizzying heights it has become ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThe executive team you hope would assist her are the people running things now - the smelly old fish who have caused the enormous hole the US is in domestically and internationally. Is it just at the distance of the other side of the world that the Republican claims that they haven't been actually in charge are so blatantly incredible?
McCain had one last chance to actually practice what he preached with Leiberman as VP. That would have been spectacular and really being a maverick and living up to what promise he had as a reformer. He failed and completed his transformation into the puppet of the crazy right wing bastard brigade.
Be fair - there is no equivalent to the bile of the Murdoch's attack dogs at Fox in the US - none of the other cables come close to their bias. I watch it for perverse entertainment until it makes me feel grubby - my children complain if I leave it on too long.
What I saw of the convention speeches showed that the Republican politicians, not just the bloggers, are making dreadful and false attacks. The Dems were mild by comparision and the stuff about Palin was not directly from them. It does seem clear she has lied through her teeth about her record painting herself as a crusader against things that she actually supported.
Ans where are the weeks of angst over her crazy minister who wants to convert the Jews? Obama copped that nonsense of guilt by association for months - it seems Palin is immune.
I'm sure Obama knows he is ripe for insult (uppity apparently). It just appears that he is at risk because the Republicans win votes in their core constituancy by being nasty and the Dems lose votes if they are nasty - ie their voters lose interest in politics altogether and don't vote - another argument for compulsory voting.
I know this boils down to my argument that some elements of conservative politics as exemplified by the Rove/Cheney axis are just plain evil but it does seem likely that the more blatant bunch of lying bastards could win and I find that distressing!
...or I'm just paying too much attention to US politics.
probably the latter.
Happy collider switch on day
Geoff
Geoff, just on the cable news issue, you seem to be unaware of MSNBC and the likes of Keith Olbermann? I was watching him on Youtube just yesterday, and he is as vicious and personal a critic of Bush and the Republicans as you could possibly hope for. His Countdown show runs directly against O'Reilly on Fox, I think.
ReplyDeleteHe also seems to be considered an incredible jerk by most of his colleagues, according to a less than flattering profile of him that appeared in New Yorker recently. Despite Bill O'Reilly's obvious flaws - such as on that famous old clip circulated earlier this year - I get the impression he is not widely considered a bastard at a personal level by most others in the industry.
I'll have to try and find him. He sounds a peach. On the other hand I really should just stop reading about this stuff - it just winds me up.
ReplyDeleteI note that the phrase "pig with lipstick" has been traced to McCain as a way of saying that a bad policy dressed up is still bad policy and that appears to have been the thrust of Obama's statment.
Do you listen the "On the media" at all. I know it is NPR (read eastern liberal elite) but their coverage of the Republican attacks on the media for even asking questions about Palin were interesting. It appears that the Republicans have succeeded in inducing self censorship among some journalists.
They also covered the arrest of journalists at the Republican convention, which I had missed. Some were arrested pre-emptively (ie not at the convention)to ensure they didn't film the police arresting the others!
As the dust settles the upshot appears to be that Palin is a liar on her record. That she supported the bridge to nowhere and kept the money when it fell through, she had a history of abusing her power and is as much a part of the whole lobbyist/special interest saga as any American politician (more than most it seems).
None of this makes her necessarily worse than the rest, but to have her packaged as something diferent remains galling.
Cheers