Coming into the Republican convention last week, everyone was all worried about Hurricane Gustav ripping things up. But of course it has turned out to be Hurricane Sarah that's doing the damage.
She's destroying Obama, who was entirely ripe for the skewering. The general line has been that Obama was too great and dignified for even our top professional comedians to find any good way to lampoon him. But Sarah Palin poked a big hole in this gasbag with her stellar acceptance speech, and Obama's been her beyatch ever since. You might partly consider this a sign of commander in chief McCain's expertise, his strategic skill in picking just the right weapon for his target.
In any case, Obama is going down, and she's the one doing it to him. Just a couple of particularly choice zings in her big convention speech delivered just the right way about mayors vs. community organizers and styrofoam Greek columns most particularly, and Obama's still flying randomly around the room a week later as the air escapes like a deflating balloon.
So now Obama is clearly behind McCain for the first time in this campaign, and Obama and his minions are desperate to knock ol' girl down. They haven't been able to lay a glove on her, so now Obama himself is descending from his Olympian perch to spend his precious limited campaign time attacking the other guy's veep.
But the change in altitude has caused Mr Cool and Collected, Mr Civil Politics to start melting down - and boy, oh boy, is it fun to watch. For one thing, you'd think he'd have learned a lesson about condescending from the furor over his infamous remarks about "bitter" gun owners. Yet here he is this week at a big public campaign rally mocking the "moose hunter."
But when that plastic dashboard St. Obama melts down, it really starts to stink as it burns. He's just gone out in front of a crowd calling Sarah Palin a pig. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." Now of course this was not a reference to Sarah Palin. Just ask Barack. But of course her famous self-description is of being a pit bull with lipstick. No, not a pit bull says the refined gentleman - a pig with lipstick.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Chris
From LA Times -
'McCain too has invoked pigs in criticizing opponents. When Clinton released her healthcare plan last year, the Arizona senator portrayed it as a remake of the one she proposed when her husband, Bill Clinton, was president. "I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," McCain said.'
Ahem.
2 - Ruvy
Well, Brother Barger,
At least this is not just another article
sniffing at Sarah Palin's underwearexamining the personal life of the Republican nominee for vice president.It's like I said a week ago. The race is between Palin and Obama now. It appears that Obama is being "imPaled" and it is a joy to see. And watching all the "progressives" scream as their new "messiah" get crucified is all the more enjoyable.
Of course, until I see hard evidence that the Republican candidate will do the right thing in my neck of the woods and cut out all this "Palestine" shit - and tell their judenrat puppets in Jerusalem to do the same - I'm still backing Obama.
We in Israel need a real enemy to concentrate our minds on getting rid of the American puppets in Jerusalem
3 - JEFO
I think Sarah Palin is more like a dog or a moose with lipstick than a pig, but it's practical how someone can easily make the connection.
More crocodile tears from Republicans, I love it.
4 - Cannonshop
#3 JEFO, dude, are you serious? (sigh) let me lay it out for you...
Barger is making fun of your hero, he's doing it because the guy is rattled, and making some pretty stupid, minor, mistakes. The Stephanopolous interview, the speech Al linked in this post, that's not "The One", the "Man who will bring America Together".
THAT is a guy who's pissed because this nobody bitch from the ass end of nowhere pops up, and his people didn't have dirt ready to go on her (unlike, say, Romney, Thompson,Giuliani, or Lieberman). It's making fun of stress and frustration, and it IS amusing, because the tones are wildly different-Obama's demonsrating rather heavily that he lacks a sense of humour and proportion-he's attacking McCain's VEEP for crying out loud, as in the person he Is NOT RUNNING AGAINST.
He's proving to be thin-skinned and vain. These are not traits one might consider in a "Uniter", who will bring "Change". They're traits very common to a "Celebrity" and those that have them are quite worthy of mockery-anyone that takes himself that seriously probably won't take the job nearly seriously enough.
He's proving unable to handle MILD attacks, what happens when he's POTUS and everything magically becomes HIS FAULT-with appropriate attacks and genuine venom?
5 - jp
No one can deny that if Governor Palin were a man, she would never have been picked.
Say what you will about Obama's experience, but he has been vetted over and over through the primary season by voters and the media. He won the nomination fairly after campaigning in every state and got millions of votes.
One man made the Palin decision on very little information. One man decided that the free world could be ruled by someone with no foreign policy experience and little exposure to much of America and the world.
With no real clue on how Gov. Palin might engage China, Russia, Iran, or other rogue states, McCain gambled all of our futures.
Would you entrust the safety of your children to someone you've only seriously talked to once? Especially when you knew they were at serious risk from the outside?
Isn't that the definition of "being willing to lose a war to win an election?"
Even if the Palin gamble works flawlessly, gamblers eventually lose and lose big. America can't afford that type of decision making style after watching Bush do it for 8 years.
6 - Cannonshop
jp, you're ALSO missing it. Your man was rattled by a pretty easy trick-the RNC picked someone that his handlers hadn't bothered to familiarize themselves with, and she made a couple of jokes at his expense on national television.
His REACTION tells me that even if I knew the guy for years, I wouldn't trust my sister's kids to his care, nor my future offspring.
Why?
Because she freaked him out. Thin skinned people with too much personal sensitivity aren't going to be cool under real-world pressure. They crack. It's like the football player who freaks out the first time the ramp drops and the bad guys are shooting into the track. He looked GREAT when it was lasertag at NTC the previous year, but when it came to something that could actually inflict pain, he collapses. Obama has now established a pattern-first his freak out over the Jab at his "ears", now his temper-tantrum over the "Community Organizer" and "Styrofoam Pillars" jibe.
If he was the man you want him to be, he'd have ignored it, because his opponent is John McCain, not Sarah Palin. He didn't, because his vanity was hit-and that should trouble you a bit more.
What happens when a Russian calls him a racial slur during a tense negotiation? if someone cracking on him as mildly as Palin did sets off this kind of reaction, do you want to check and see how he handles a serious provocation?
Do you want a vain man to have access to the Football, with the Launch Codes, and the big red button?
7 - soldier
well, it's great to come back from a tour and see that mccain has decided to trust our lives to some backwater bitch with the arrogance of a holyroller and with zip experience with foreign matters.
i don't like obama's style much, but the guy's got honest written all over him. we watch the news, too, and i have yet to see him take things to the level that mccain has. talk about lowlife. i remember mccain back in the 90's and this ain't the same guy. this guy's a sell-out to the fools who put my life in harms way for no reason. he's not willing to lose a war to win an election, but he's willing to lose his dignity and honor for it.
and don't think i'm the only guy thinking this. i can count a hundred or more back in iraq who look at bush as a joke and mccain as a puppet for rove. so, let's all cut the bull about the fake issues of pigs and lipstick.
fact is, obama is the one who should be running the country and not mccain, and definitely not that trailer trash nobody who's so ambitious she'd use her own family to get elected.
i don't like obama's style but i like his demeanor and candor. i'm going for obama. and americans supporting the troops should to.
8 - Ruvy
What happens when a Russian calls him a racial slur during a tense negotiation? if someone cracking on him as mildly as Palin did sets off this kind of reaction, do you want to check and see how he handles a serious provocation?
Cannonshop,
I've been looking at this from the point of view that McCain may not survive the full four years. Palin's husband is part Eskimo, but he does not like to be called "Inuit" which is what Eskimos preferred to be called. There is another group of folks who live in the High Arctic, the Chukchi (this is what they are called in Russia) who hate the Inuits. I'm wondering if her husband is part Chukchi, and that the name he uses for the tribe is one used on this side of the Bering Strait. If Palin does actually become president, this may be important. The Russians are known to use all kinds of provocations and forms of intimidation in dealing with enemies - and you can bet that they view us as enemies.
So, I'm throwing this out as a general question. Does anybody know anything about the particular group of Eskimo that Scott Palin takes descent from. It's worth knowing this stuff before we need to....
As for the gas-bag Obama and his screw-ups, well, we'll see how many screw-ups McCain makes in the coming weeks. The McCain camp appears scared, even though they seem to have the advantage right now. I'll be checking Google as well myself....
9 - Ruvy
Reporting back on the query I raised in the previous comment. The Yu'pik and Chukchi are not the same people. The Chukchi herd reindeer, and the Yu'pik hunt sea mammals....
10 - Cannonshop
Well...Todd Palin's also a roughneck, so he's probably heard worse, and neither of the Palin Adults are from groups that get a lot of "Sensitivity" conditioning, or any particular case of people walking-on-eggshells not to offend them for fear of lawsuits.
11 - troll
...of course if her husband were a real man he'd challenge Obama to a duel
12 - Joanne Huspek
If the animal kingdom could speak, we'd probably hear a great uproar over the malignment of pigs, seals, Moby Dick, dogs and the rest of the animals.
Every time I hear about Sarah Palin killing a moose, all I can think of is moose steaks. Moose burgers. Don't turn up your elitist noses at it, either. If you haven't tried it, you don't know what you're missing.
13 - Buffalo
You are either intentionally taking one sentence out of context or rather lacking in intelligence. A pity either way.
14 - Dr Dreadful
Even if Brother Barger's Schadenfreude is rather unattractive, I must concede that I did enjoy the imagery of a deflated Obama still wafting back and forth across the room...
Ruvy: so now the fate of the 21st century world rests on which obscure Arctic peoples like to kick the asses of which other obscure Arctic peoples?
The political dynamic going on in your head is very odd.
15 - Silas Kain
What would Kermit (the Frog) say?
16 - Andy Marsh
ribbit?
17 - Jordan Richardson
“Someday we'll find it, that rainbow connection,
the lovers the dreamers and me.”
18 - Clavos
It's not easy being green.
19 - bliffle
soldier #7 says:
i remember mccain back in the 90's and this ain't the same guy. this guy's a sell-out to the fools who put my life in harms way for no reason. he's not willing to lose a war to win an election, but he's willing to lose his dignity and honor for it.
You're right, it isn't the same guy. I think the primary loss in 2000 is what changed him, when he saw that blustery lying could go unchallenged, he embraced it, both literally (embarassing Bush man-hug) and figuratively.
IMO, he's sacrificed everything to his ambition.
20 - dee
McCain and crazy Palin are both phonies... they are going to lose in November...
as Barack has said ENOUGH!!!
21 - offL
Palin is the lipstick the GOP is the pig, but before i go off on that, just be advised that.
Im voting for an American who questions America not the one who didnt. He certainly is not John McCain!
Lest we forget where this country came from, then let us question Vietnam again. John McCain wasnt a hero then so why is he one now? It was a pointless war then so why isnt it now?
The American's who sought answers about this pointless war then are no less patriotic today as they were then. So why didnt John McCain buck the McCain family trend in favor of his supposed literary passion? Why wasnt he suspicious of his government then as our forefathers intended by qualifying our right to bear arms?
The majority of Americans questioned our government's actions over Vietnam so why didnt John McCain? Did John McCain fly over Vietnam so people could become community organizers? Did John McCain fly over Vietnam so people could pick the responsibility of a community themselves? Apparently not!
This country ought to sit down and seriously examine the John McCain record from the inception. Was his daddy ready to let him die there in the name of honor? My understanding is that the two men werent very close to begin with. How much of that "record" is a one-sided heroic tale and how much of it isnt. We all know that some sailors share some pretty big fish.
22 - Frank Marshall
I oppose Obama as much as anyone, so please do not misconstrue my comment as anything politically hostile.
I was shocked to see your vulgar use of negro ghetto slang in your headline. In English, there is no such word as "beyatch." Surely your vocabulary is not so poor that you really could not think of a real word to express your thought instead of parroting Ebonics in a headline.
That is utterly undignified, inappropriate, and downright illiterate. Apart from that, it expresses a sub-intellectual tone unworthy of serious reading.
23 - Al Barger
Really now Dee, that's just silly. You might reasonably dislike McCain or Palin for policy or other reasons, but being PHONY is the absolute last thing you could accuse them of. Both of these people are real down to their toes - and that unmistakable fact is a big part of their appeal.
Now if you wanted to discuss being a phony, you might consider Hawaiian born Ivy League Obama affecting bits of trying to talk like he's from the hood. Right there is an empty suit searching for some authentic identity, cause he doesn't have one.
24 - Ruvy
so now the fate of the 21st century world rests on which obscure Arctic peoples like to kick the asses of which other obscure Arctic peoples? The political dynamic going on in your head is very odd.
Te political dynamic going on in my head is to try and fathom which raven and which drum the Russians might try to use. Understanding the weapons of the enemy requires understanding oneself and one's weaknesses. I was just trying to get some information. I got it and I'm sorta satisfied.
The fate of the 21st Century does not lie in the hands of the Russians, any more than it lies in the hands of the Americans....
25 - dee
HAHAHA - McCain, the oldest fossil in the Senate, campaign filled with lobbyists and Bush aids, been in the Senate twenty plus years now all of a sudden claiming to want to change things come on... he's been part of the problem... now Al if you don't see the phonyness leaking from his old bones you are beyond help... and Palin, all I do is lie about my record, make shit up because it sounds good and refuse to talk to the media because I would have to answer questions about my false assertions, if you can't see her for her phonyness also then you must be "slow"...
Obama talking like he's from the hood? What planet do you live on? Everytime I've heard him talk he comes across as brilliant to me...
what state do you live in? Alaska?