It’s not a whiny sexist issue
Bookworm on Sep 10 2008 at 2:27 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama, Sarah Palin
As you know, I’m willing to assume that Obama, rather than intentionally calling Palin or McCain a pig, used an infelicitous expression, which may or may not have had any subliminal resonance for him (although it clearly did for his audience). Listening to the speech, I find much more upsetting how inarticulate Obama is. This man cannot think on his feet and it shows:
Whatever Obama’s motives and meaning, conservative pundits are now fearful that Palin’s team is making a mistake treating this as a sexist attack (this is a good example of this viewpoint). I agree that this is a big mistake, but not for the same reason as the pundits. I agree because this attack — if attack there was — wasn’t sexist.
There have been other sexist attacks launched against Palin, with liberal pundits piling on to explain why Palin can be VP or can be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, but she can’t be both. But Obama was not attacking Palin’s sex. He was using a shorthand — lipstick — to identify her. He could equally well have said “You can put a pig in glasses.”
The insult, therefore, wasn’t tied to her sex, it was tied to what he did with that identifier: Obama, having used code for Palin (if one is assuming that’s what he intended to do), then proceeded to call either Palin or McCain a pig.
In my world it’s appropriate to take some umbrage when someone calls you a pig. You can reasonably challenge the crudity that Obama keeps displaying when he’s feeling tired and/or on the defensive. It bespeaks a low mind and an angry, ugly sensibility, and aptly highlights McCain’s graciousness in this campaign and Palin’s happy warrior quality.
Of course, having said all that, it is worth noting that Obama’s anti-Hillary campaign saw him making points that were somewhat derogatory of women. This fact is rather interesting when laid alongside the fact that Obama’s life seems to have been so thoroughly dominated by strong women. I leave it to the armchair and real psychologists amongst you to figure out if there’s a pattern here.
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40 Responses to “It’s not a whiny sexist issue”
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My thoughts too, BW. Given that Governor Palin’s lipstick on a pit bull remark drew so much attention, it’s disingenuous to think audiences would not make the association when Senator Obama made that similar remark. And even if his intent was not to slur Palin, Obama’s delivery and word choice was crude, and rather fumbling. His candidacy thus far has been based on his soaring oratory, his ability to inspire mass audiences with his speeches. What’s soaring in these lame remarks? He came off like a bit of an amateur. Sans oratory, what is Obama going to run on? His executive experience and legislative achievements? His voting present so many times in the Illinois state legislature, or his singular lack of published papers and articulated postions during his tenure as a law prof?
Much can and should be said about the traditional feminists’ response to Palin’s nomination. But we do not want major Republican and conservative figures to start attempting to gain points by pointing out perceived, or even real, sexism. That is what the left and traditional feminists do ad nauseum and it is stale and an argument of the weak.
Besides, the American people are smart enough to see what is going on. So let them. It will be much more powerful.
Deana
Off topic but I have to post here for benefit of dg that Intrade now has Obama 49.3 and McCain 49.9. What did I tell you? If you have money on The Obama, now is the time to sell and cut your losses.
The inability to speak off the cuff has not hurt Republican support for Bush, and he makes Obama–or, for that matter, McCain–look like Winston Churchill. But go on with the unevenly applied criticisms. The hypocrisy is so amusing…
“Don’t tell me that words don’t matter. Words matter.” – Barack Obama
I think he means that words actually mean something. The guy who voted for 90% of Bush’s agenda is not a change candidate, unless you think “change” and “status quo” are synonyms. Or maybe the meaning of “change” is another controversy that conservatives would like to teach in schools…
Whatever Obama intended it could certainly be construed that he was speaking of Palin. The best way to deal with it would have been laughter, and maybe a little mockery. He does appear to have a thin skin, so a few barbs might have sent him into further gaffes. This would keep him on the defensive, and off his message.
Z-man, you’re a little premature. The closing prices on Intrade today are Obama 50.0, McCain 49.5 (http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/trading/t_index.jsp?selConID=409933). Like an option, it only matters what the prices are at expiry, on Election Day.
Yes but before Election Day I anticipate the Obama campaign will be Chapter 11. And that ain’t worth squat.
Slightly OT: Is it possible Biden is signalling he may get dumped in favor of Hillary??
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/biden-hillary-a.html
Obama’s not the only one with a problem…
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=9279
No, Ellie, Biden is just a gaffe rocket. The Great Bloviator of Delaware who emits more fumes than a Dupont petrochemical plant outside Wilmington.
This from an honest conservative, Andrew Sullivan:
“For me, this surreal moment – like the entire surrealism of the past ten days – is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It’s about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person….So far, he has let us all down.”
The rest is at: http://www.truthout.org/article/mccains-integrity
Andrew Sullivan is neither honest nor a conservative.
There really are not any unevenly applied critcisms here.
No one ever lauded Bush as an orator for the ages. No one who has ever supported him compared him to the greatest speakers America has ever known. He was and is supported for different reasons – ones that matter.
Instead, with Obama, we have been told over and over for the past year and a half how fabulous of a speaker Obama is. For example:
“Obama is such a polished speaker, his delivery so relaxed, his cadences so measured, his voice so resonant, that almost any approach he adopts tonight will easily surpass in oratorial quality nearly every other speaker who preceded him . . .”
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/28/obamas-challenge/
“Barack Obama is inspirational and transformational without being confrontational . . One reason is his natural charisma . . .Another is his skill at public speaking, which probably surpasses that of either JFK or Ronaldus Magnus.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4690543&mesg_id=4690543
“His ‘soaring rhetoric,’ she says, ‘is moving his audiences not just politically, but emotionally,’ even moving audience members to tears on occasion.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/earlyshow/main3829938.shtml
“When charismatic politicians such as Obama speak, they are able to turn a room full of strangers into a community rich in shared meaning . . .”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0228/p09s01-coop.html
“All of Senator Obama’s speeches mesmerize his audiences . . . ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/the-10-greatest-speakers-_b_38724.html
“For all of Obama’s appeal and eloquence . . . ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/06/04/dl0404.xml
“What Makes Obama a Good Speaker?” (with the standard comparisons to Dr. King and JFK)
http://www.observer.com/2008/what-makes-obama-good-speaker
In short, his own supporters put Obama on this pedestal on which he now has trouble standing. And now they are furious (furious!) that the rest of us are merely point out what has been evident all along.
Deana
Z,
It goes without saying that Biden wears the crown of GBD, but even so …… can this possibly be accidental?
On the other hand, both Prez candidates have been granted phenonmenal luck (see elsewhere for lists). I personally think that McCain only hoped to steal 2-4% of the PUMAs with the Palin pick. He had no idea of the hit she would become, IMHO.
Similarly, BHO had no clue that Biden would prove to be such a goof so soon and so often. So, like a gift from Heaven, the GBD himself suggests he wasn’t the best pick.
If BHO has half a brain*, he will leap on the opening the Great Bloviator has given him.
* I know, I know and if *pigs* (wink, wink) could fly ….
XXOO
Z-man, says who? You? Why don’t you rebut the argument rather than attacking the messenger.
DG – I think we’ve got your number.
I find it amusing that the protypical responses amongst conservatives (and dogmatic liberals also) are ad hominem arguments or silence. If you cannot engage in civil debate and prove a point wrong, then you’ve conceded the argument. You can still believe what you want, but you are wrong.
You have shown you cannot understand numbers, Danny.
Hear, hear, Zhombre.
On a completely side note regarding Biden, he is a gaffe machine but I have to say that I felt very, very bad for him today after he asked Sen. Graham (who is in a wheelchair) to stand up. I mean, who hasn’t said something at some point in their life that they wish they could take back? Rush was just relentless on that today and it was starting to make me mad. It’s one thing to lambast someone for saying some things but this was clearly just a mistake that I’m sure Biden never intended.
THAT being said – wow, Ellie – I hadn’t thought about that. I did hear Biden admit that Palin might have been a better pick.
Can you imagine the upheaval if Obama dumped Biden and chose someone else? What if it were Hillary? I mean, even I am starting to feel sorry for Hillary at this point!!
Deana
Ellie2
Similarly, BHO had no clue that Biden would prove to be such a goof so soon and so often.
Biden has a track record in his decades in Washington of saying anything that came to his mind, without previously screening it through a thought process. Biden is the poster child for running off at the mouth. If BHO had no clue, he is truly clueless. Like they say, what you see is what you get.
These people are really going off the deep end…
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_cosell10_09-10-08_FDBHJVP_v26.4a6033e.html
This was interesting as well…I’d combine it with the other, but last time I did two links in one comment, it disappeared!
http://www.americasright.com/2008/09/berg-v-obama-update-tuesday-september-9.html
Deanna,
My mom lost a leg to cancer when she was 35 years old with 4 kids. My mom took it in stride and (as she was a widow also) went to work, shopping etc on crutches. Because of her attitude — “anything you can do, I can do better..” — although strangers saw the crutches, they never noticed that she had one leg.
When people, seeing her crutches, asked her “did you break your leg?” she would simply say “no.” If they looked confused, she might say “I lost my leg.”
She was never offended and I doubt if the gent in the wheelchair was, either. Once a small boy, maybe three, saw my mom in a store. The toddler went over to her, bent down on the floor and looked up my mother’s skirt. Although the boy’s mother was horrifed, my mom understood perfectly and told the boy’s mom “he’s wondering where my other leg is — it’s alright — really, I have children of my own.”
I, like everyone else, can relate to Joe Biden. He make us all look smart
Ellie
PS: When Biden said to the guy in the wheelchair “stand up and show yourself” he was actually paying him a compliment: Joe was seeing him as a regular person, not a man in a wheelchair.
When people see *you* and not your disability that is wonderful.
Hillary would have to be a real fool – and regardless of what I think of her politics, I don’t think she’s _anyone’s_ fool – to be willing to accept an offer of the Vice Presidency at this point.
I think he’s hanging by a thread…
Well, Sue, I don’t know. Can she say “no thanks, I’ll take my chances in 2012″? I’m thinking more and more that the Dems are finished.
Jim Treacher has an interesting post about Obama’s behavior patterns when cornered. It fits pretty well with what Bookworm’s been saying about 0 for months now.
http://jimtreacher.com/archives/001566.html
As we are frequently reminded by MSM, Obama is a highly intelligent individual. It’s ridiculous to believe he couldn’t mentally connect what he was going to say with Palin’s joke. He obviously thought the comment would be received differently and become HIS one-liner, as the hockey mom-lipstick one is for Palin. In other words, he was trying to out-Palin Palin and it backfired.
This is really funny…he picks Biden for a VP, and within 2 weeks, he’s plagarizing. If that wasn’t bad enough, he plagarized a _cartoon_!!
http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/09/10/when-you-put-a-dipstick-in-an-empty-suit-its-still-a-dipstickand-an-empty-suit/#comments
dg – to respond to your earlier post — at one time I read Andrew Sullivan regularly and enjoyed and admired his writing, but the man has become a hysterical twit and assign neither consistency nor reliability nor integrity to his ravings. My opinion, for what it’s worth. Respond if you like but I don’t want to labor this further. You can have the last word. On my part, silence follows.
One reason for not bothering with Andrew Sullivan is that it becomes problematic separating the wheat from the chaff at his site. For example, he devoted some time to Trig and speculation that Sarah Palin was not Trig’s mother. If he wants to do that , that is his choice. As the saying goes, it’s a free country. As it is a free country, I choose not to try to separate the wheat from the chaff at his site.
Zhombre:
I used to find Sullivan interesting. He was one of Bush’s biggest proponents on the GWT and the attack on Hussein’s Iraq. However, then something happened that caused Sullivan to do a 180-degree change in his positions and he became violently anti-Bush.
What was it that raised Sullivan’s ire so? Bush would not support gay marriage.
Sullivan is unbalanced, in the full sense of the word.
I did a 180 too, from lifelong Democrat to neocon. What makes Sullivan so reprehensible is that he denies that he’s switched from conservative to Progressive — thereby enabling people to advance his rants as “conservative arguments.” He is as dishonest as the MSM, which still tries to convince people that it is politically neutral.
Z-man, so you shoot the messenger (again) and threaten silence, all in one post. Someone is going to have to refer me to a blog where conservatives actually want to debate issues rather than congratulate themselves on having all the answers already… Talk about a bubble of like-minded, unquestioned opinion.
dg – Goodbye then!
Do you really think you get to command that a debate must occur simply by posting? A debate occurs when both sides are interested. If one side (on this topic, that means, you) wants to continue and the other doesn’t… well then, the conversation simply goes quiet. At least for a while.)
I was at a family get-together up in cabins in northern Michigan this summer. Someone mentioned the Israel/Palestine issue. My brother in law stated that he was absolutely certain and had proof that Israel stole Palestinian lands and that Israel was completely in the wrong. I couldn’t help myself, I countered immediately that I had darn good information myself that Israel did not steal Palestinian land. He responded with some hostility and was raring to go at it, and everyone around the table started to get very uncomfortable. I cut off the debate immediately, saying this is not the time nor the place – at a summer cottage – to get into a debate that’s been raging among partisans for years. We peacefully agreed to stop.
Sometimes debates stop simply because one party simply doesn’t want them to continue. At times with one of my liberal friends I complain that we’re rehashing the same tired topic again, and we should just stop and move on. He almost always agrees with me (at least, about stopping!).
If dg wanted civil debate, he could have argued with Deana’s list of evidence, which had nothing to do with personally attacking dg.
But DG chose to argue about personal attacks with Zhombre, as if Dg doesn’t like personal attacks.
If that was true, why was dg ignoring Deana but giving Zhombre his attention? WHy give the character assassin more attention but not the honest arguer? Cause of what Dg claims, that Dg is out for honest arguments and debate?
I think not.
This from an honest conservative, Andrew Sullivan:
Btw, Z wasn’t conducting ad hominem. When Dg tries to use an authority, like Sullivan, in order to pass through Dg’s little “arguments”, it becomes perfectly acceptable and reasonable to point out the logical fallacy that “authority doesn’t mean truth” and “Sullivan ain’t the authority you claim he is”.
Dg’s arguments fail by the logic, not because of ad hominem, but because of an appeal to authority that was false and illogical even if it was true to begin with.
You also shouldn’t use circular logic and say what Sullivan said is true because Sullivan is honest, and Sullivan is honset because what he said was true.