44 comments

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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  I think it's Miss Piggy, not Ms.
  
  Refering to somebody (especially a lady) as a pig is mean, even if you were using an idiom.
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Good eye... I'll correct it. I am still not convinced he was referring to Palin.
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  Joe Brummer

  9 months ago

  I absolutely Agree with you and Ellie! Not sure how that comment was ever considered clever, but I suppose it is up there with the walk like a duck thing....
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  I agree with Ellie too.
  
  HI JOE!
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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  Wow, everybody agrees with me. I feel special now, just like Miss Piggy in that picture. :::strikes dramatic pose:::
  
  I've been wondering, how do all of these undecided voters decide who to vote for? It seems like politics is so surface level (what with a whole news cycle devoted to a pig quote), and nobody ever addresses 'the issues' in any kind of depth, while all the while complaining about the fact that nobody ever talks about the issues (kind of like me right now). If it weren't for the fact that I vote based on a few very specific criteria, I don't think I'd ever be able to figure out which circles to ink on my ballot.
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Hey Ellie, I didn't know if you got notified of all comments on the thread or just ones that were directly replying to you. This is kind of a test to figure that out.
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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  No, we only get notified of comments that are within strings that we've commented in. But I was aware of the other comments. Just waiting until I had more time to answer (although right now I'm in the middle of an allergy attack, so still not at my best).
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Ugh, I am not stranger to allergy attacks. You have my prayers.
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  Leo

  9 months ago

  Ellie: was the use of that particular idiom also mean when McCain used it about the policies of Hillary Clinton?
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Hey Leo, if you click the reply link under her comment it will notify her of your follow up comment (I think :)) Forgive the repeat of my comment to Mensley.
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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  There is no mainstream connection that has ever been directly made between Clinton and lipstick or pigs (although I'm sure somebody somewhere has written a blog post and called Hillary a pig), especially on the magnitude of the Palin lipstick connection. Everything that politicians say in their speeches goes through multiple brilliant people working for them, as well as the politician. There is no way that any one of them could have missed the fact that people would make the connection.
  
  If you remember back a few years, Kerry made a similar gaff when he implied that our troops were 'uneducated' (ie, stupid) and 'stuck in Iraq' and then tried to pretend that his words had been misunderstood. If you go and look at what he said, it was carefully calculated so that he could make that insult without being called out. Unfortunately for Kerry, neither the American people nor her troops are stupid or uneducated, so he created a huge PR catastrophe. Obama can't get away with directly calling Palin a pig, and so his people came up with a way to make the connection without actually stooping to blatant namecalling, knowing that his audience would understand the implications of the idiom. Which they did; the line was followed by thunderous laughter and applause.
  
  So basically, I think that McCain was using the idiom to attack his opponent's policies, and Obama was using it to slyly attack his opponent.
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Well, while I totally missed the reference being tied to Palin's lipstick joke. I did see the footage again and the crowd obviously made that connection.
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  Ellie

  9 months ago

  I think it's Miss Piggy, not Ms.
  
  
  Refering to somebody (especially a lady) as a pig is mean, even if you were using an idiom.
  
  
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Good eye... I'll correct it. I am still not convinced he was referring to Palin.
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  Joe Brummer

  9 months ago

  I absolutely Agree with you and Ellie! Not sure how that comment was ever considered clever, but I suppose it is up there with the walk like a duck thing....
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  I agree with Ellie too.
  
  
  HI JOE!
  
  
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  Mensley

  9 months ago

  Ellie, I was wondering the same thing. I mean, even if either candidate did intentionally make a stupid remark like that, I don't think it would affect who I was voting for. After all, I'm basing my vote on the policies and values that the candidate promises to fight for... not whether they offend certain people with idle comments.
  
  I agree it's stupid that the media makes it seem like the election is about this kind of garbage far more than it is about the state of our nation.
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Hey Mensley, if you click the reply link under her comment, and leave a message that way, it will notify her of your follow up comment (I think :))
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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  Exactly. I guess we are people that have firm ideas about what we believe and want in a leader. I just can't imagine that the state of Ohio (a famous swing state, right?) is filled with people who are actively educating themselves on the issues, and also don't have enough strong convictions one way or the other to make a firm, early decision on who to vote for. Which makes it seem like the smear campaigns might be way more important (and potentially detrimental) to the race than anyone would like.
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• 

  Ellie

  9 months ago

  Wow, everybody agrees with me. I feel special now, just like Miss Piggy in that picture. :::strikes dramatic pose:::
  
  
  I've been wondering, how do all of these undecided voters decide who to vote for? It seems like politics is so surface level (what with a whole news cycle devoted to a pig quote), and nobody ever addresses 'the issues' in any kind of depth, while all the while complaining about the fact that nobody ever talks about the issues (kind of like me right now). If it weren't for the fact that I vote based on a few very specific criteria, I don't think I'd ever be able to figure out which circles to ink on my ballot.
  
  
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  Leo

  9 months ago

  Ellie: was the use of that particular idiom also mean when McCain used it about the policies of Hillary Clinton?
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  Mensley

  9 months ago

  Ellie, I was wondering the same thing. I mean, even if either candidate did intentionally make a stupid remark like that, I don't think it would affect who I was voting for. After all, I'm basing my vote on the policies and values that the candidate promises to fight for... not whether they offend certain people with idle comments.
  
  
  I agree it's stupid that the media makes it seem like the election is about this kind of garbage far more than it is about the state of our nation.
  
  
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  Janey

  9 months ago

  ok, Ellie, I think you're too funny!
  
  I don't think the lipstick on a pig was in reference to Palin. I think that it was just a poor choice of words used and perhaps, I'd also agree with Randy that, well, in my words, the back and forth game is exhausting and I'd like to see Politics that don't get like that.
  
  Canada is beginning an election campaign and sad to say is that it's beginning to look like the Presidential campaign ... you can put a lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig...lol....not that I am saying this is a bad thing but this is just my observation. Canada is becoming more and more like the States. I could go on but I don't want to both the yankee's and southerners with Canadian stuff. :)
  
  Perhaps Obama just didn't make a wise choice in words given what Palin had said prior.
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Janey, if you click reply under a specific comment and leave a comment that way, the author of the original comment will be notified of your follow up.
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  Janey

  9 months ago

  Just wondering....did it work :) lol.... I think you guy's had mentioned that in earlier postings.
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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  Janey,
  
  The problem with what you're presuming happened is that Obama didn't make "a poor choice of words" on the spur of the moment. His public statements and speeches are written for him by his staff, and reviewed by himself and multiple members of that staff. There is no way that a room full of a dozen very smart people who have been completely immersed in this campaign missed the fact that the line about lipstick would be seen as a reference to the most popular and important line of Palin's acceptance speech, but that an audience immediately picked up on it.
  
  American political speeches very often tend to be composed of lines that are oblique references to much larger issues (rather than speeches about the large issues, hence the lack of depth in our campaign coverage). Because of this audiences are listening to every line and trying to fill in the references. Obama's speech writers know this, and they would have realized what people were going to assume he meant, even if they didn't originally intend that meaning. They chose not to fill in with another idiom, and this reaction is what they're getting for it.
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  Janey

  9 months ago

  Well, that might be so, but he along with all of his team still make a choice that wasn't exactly the best choice. I think we can agree on that one.
  
  But then again, I think with Obama he just might have the tenacity to say something live that hadn't been rehersed before hand. He gives me that kind of impression. I can almost hear his team saying, "Obama, what were you thinking out there?"
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  B.T.Carolus

  9 months ago

  Of course politicians do that. The hockey mom, pit bull, lipstick line was Palin's only extemporaneous line in her speech, hence it's being the most important (it shows she can think on her feet, respond to her audience, and knows how to deliver a joke w/out much or any practice). The fact that it has also proven to be one of the most popular lines may be regarded as a minor miracle.
  
  Obama is famously terrible when he does do interviews and debates unscripted, see the paygrade comment at Saddleback (plus, if you pay attention to him in interviews and such, with no teleprompter, he tends to say um or some other kind of crutch word constantly, which is extremely annoying).
  
  But when candidates do go off the script, as with Sarah Palin's pit bull joke or Obama at Saddleback, we know because their speeches are released before hand to the media so the real deal can be checked against the script, and their campaigns like to trumpet their 'authentic' moments when they come across well (Hillary crying, anyone?) and use it as an excuse when they fall flat. The Obama campaign has not said that the remark was extemporaneous. Obama delivered an ill-considered scripted line, and he is reaping the whirlwind.
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Hey Mensley, if you click the reply link under her comment it will notify her of your follow up comment (I think :))
  reply
• 

  Randy

  9 months ago

  Hey Leo, if you click the reply link under her comment it will notify her of your follow up comment (I think :)) Forgive the repeat of my comment to Mensley.
  reply
• 

  Randy

  9 months ago

  Hey Ellie, I didn't know if you got notified of all comments on the thread or just ones that were directly replying to you. This is kind of a test to figure that out.
  reply
• 

  Ellie

  9 months ago

  No, we only get notified of comments that are within strings that we've commented in. But I was aware of the other comments. Just waiting until I had more time to answer (although right now I'm in the middle of an allergy attack, so still not at my best).
  reply
• 

  Ellie

  9 months ago

  There is no mainstream connection that has ever been directly made between Clinton and lipstick or pigs (although I'm sure somebody somewhere has written a blog post and called Hillary a pig), especially on the magnitude of the Palin lipstick connection. Everything that politicians say in their speeches goes through multiple brilliant people working for them, as well as the politician. There is no way that any one of them could have missed the fact that people would make the connection.
  
  
  If you remember back a few years, Kerry made a similar gaff when he implied that our troops were 'uneducated' (ie, stupid) and 'stuck in Iraq' and then tried to pretend that his words had been misunderstood. If you go and look at what he said, it was carefully calculated so that he could make that insult without being called out. Unfortunately for Kerry, neither the American people nor her troops are stupid or uneducated, so he created a huge PR catastrophe. Obama can't get away with directly calling Palin a pig, and so his people came up with a way to make the connection without actually stooping to blatant namecalling, knowing that his audience would understand the implications of the idiom. Which they did; the line was followed by thunderous laughter and applause.
  
  
  
  So basically, I think that McCain was using the idiom to attack his opponent's policies, and Obama was using it to slyly attack his opponent.
  
  
  reply
• 

  Ellie

  9 months ago

  Exactly. I guess we are people that have firm ideas about what we believe and want in a leader. I just can't imagine that the state of Ohio (a famous swing state, right?) is filled with people who are actively educating themselves on the issues, and also don't have enough strong convictions one way or the other to make a firm, early decision on who to vote for. Which makes it seem like the smear campaigns might be way more important (and potentially detrimental) to the race than anyone would like.
  reply
• 

  Randy

  9 months ago

  Well, while I totally missed the reference being tied to Palin's lipstick joke. I did see the footage again and the crowd obviously made that connection.
  reply
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  Randy

  9 months ago

  Ugh, I am not stranger to allergy attacks. You have my prayers.
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  Janey

  9 months ago

  ok, Ellie, I think you're too funny!
  
  
  I don't think the lipstick on a pig was in reference to Palin. I think that it was just a poor choice of words used and perhaps, I'd also agree with Randy that, well, in my words, the back and forth game is exhausting and I'd like to see Politics that don't get like that.
  
  
  
  Canada is beginning an election campaign and sad to say is that it's beginning to look like the Presidential campaign ... you can put a lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig...lol....not that I am saying this is a bad thing but this is just my observation. Canada is becoming more and more like the States. I could go on but I don't want to both the yankee's and southerners with Canadian stuff. :)
  
  
  
  Perhaps Obama just didn't make a wise choice in words given what Palin had said prior.
  
  
  reply
• 

  Randy

  9 months ago

  Janey, if you click reply under a specific comment and leave a comment that way, the author of the original comment will be notified of your follow up.
  reply
• 

  Janey

  9 months ago

  Well, Ellie, I'm not going to argue against you with your comment. There isn't much I disagree with you on. In times like this I am glad I am Canadian. If I get tired of the politics in Canada I can just vote for the Green Party because I don't think they'll get enough votes to even count for the race! There I go, just throwing away my vote because politics....is beginning to look like who can throw the best punches and mock the other better and it's becoming more and more difficult to find politicians that actually follow through with what they say. They can make the pig comments, the hockey mom comments and so forth but none of that ever really brings a solution to the growing problem in America.
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  Janey

  9 months ago

  Just wondering....did it work :) lol.... I think you guy's had mentioned that in earlier postings.
  reply
• 

  Ellie

  9 months ago

  Janey,
  
  
  The problem with what you're presuming happened is that Obama didn't make "a poor choice of words" on the spur of the moment. His public statements and speeches are written for him by his staff, and reviewed by himself and multiple members of that staff. There is no way that a room full of a dozen very smart people who have been completely immersed in this campaign missed the fact that the line about lipstick would be seen as a reference to the most popular and important line of Palin's acceptance speech, but that an audience immediately picked up on it.
  
  
  
  American political speeches very often tend to be composed of lines that are oblique references to much larger issues (rather than speeches about the large issues, hence the lack of depth in our campaign coverage). Because of this audiences are listening to every line and trying to fill in the references. Obama's speech writers know this, and they would have realized what people were going to assume he meant, even if they didn't originally intend that meaning. They chose not to fill in with another idiom, and this reaction is what they're getting for it.
  
  
  reply
• 

  Janey

  9 months ago

  Well, that might be so, but he along with all of his team still make a choice that wasn't exactly the best choice. I think we can agree on that one.
  
  
  But then again, I think with Obama he just might have the tenacity to say something live that hadn't been rehersed before hand. He gives me that kind of impression. I can almost hear his team saying, "Obama, what were you thinking out there?"
  
  
  reply
• 

  Ellie

  9 months ago

  Of course politicians do that. The hockey mom, pit bull, lipstick line was Palin's only extemporaneous line in her speech, hence it's being the most important (it shows she can think on her feet, respond to her audience, and knows how to deliver a joke w/out much or any practice). The fact that it has also proven to be one of the most popular lines may be regarded as a minor miracle.
  
  
  Obama is famously terrible when he does do interviews and debates unscripted, see the paygrade comment at Saddleback (plus, if you pay attention to him in interviews and such, with no teleprompter, he tends to say um or some other kind of crutch word constantly, which is extremely annoying).
  
  
  
  But when candidates do go off the script, as with Sarah Palin's pit bull joke or Obama at Saddleback, we know because their speeches are released before hand to the media so the real deal can be checked against the script, and their campaigns like to trumpet their 'authentic' moments when they come across well (Hillary crying, anyone?) and use it as an excuse when they fall flat. The Obama campaign has not said that the remark was extemporaneous. Obama delivered an ill-considered scripted line, and he is reaping the whirlwind.
  
  
  reply
• 

  Janey

  9 months ago

  Well, Ellie, I'm not going to argue against you with your comment. There isn't much I disagree with you on. In times like this I am glad I am Canadian. If I get tired of the politics in Canada I can just vote for the Green Party because I don't think they'll get enough votes to even count for the race! There I go, just throwing away my vote because politics....is beginning to look like who can throw the best punches and mock the other better and it's becoming more and more difficult to find politicians that actually follow through with what they say. They can make the pig comments, the hockey mom comments and so forth but none of that ever really brings a solution to the growing problem in America.
  reply