After much frustration, we finally found the complete Obama speech that gave us “Alaska Pig Woman” in the media. Thanks to Jaymaster and Hauke in this thread for doing the exhausting footwork to find something that was too damned hard to find.
You can listen to and view the “Alaska Pig Woman” (hey, I made that phrase up, can I get credit for it?) speech in full context right here and also right here.
I recommend the latter link as being a little better, simply because it allows easier fast-forwarding and you can pinpoint the spot of horror at just about exactly 31 minutes in. If you start watching and listening at around 29 minutes, and stop at around 33 minutes 30 seconds (where the speech basically ends), I think you’ll get a fair context.
My conclusion: this is much ado about nothing. And I begin to suspect that some sources haven’t put the whole thing up more prominently in part because it’s pretty hard, when viewing it in context and without any accompanying commentary from Obama critics, to say that Senator Obama meant to come off the way that he’s been portrayed in the media. Or even that most of the audience really took it that way. Sorry, I think the Right is simply wrong on this one. It does not come off as an intentional personal characterization. It’s a politician giving his standard stump speech, using the same lines he’s used thousands of times.
It’s pretty typical for out-of-context lines to be used against a candidate, though, so my sympathies are somewhat muted toward the Obama camp. But my conclusion is that there’s really nothing here. You, of course, are entitled to disagree but if so please do me the courtesy of at least listening to the entire thing from 28 or 29 minutes in, until the end of the speech. I suspect most of you will agree with me (some of you grudgingly, but still).
{ 22 comments }
Alaska Pig Woman
Is that like ManBearPig?
IMO, I would call this episode a “tiny little to do about something that is close to, but not quite nothingâ€.Â
He closed his speech with this bit, and you always close a venue like this with a carefully written, stem winding, line.  I don’t think it was impromptu.  And some of the crowd took the bait, and responded with the only standing O of the speech. So he hit some kind of chord. Â
I think it was red meat for the fire breathing, anti-Palin zealots who have emerged in the last week.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve seen statements from the radical lefty sites about her being a typical earmark seeking politician (pig at the trough) and arguments that she’s not even a woman (the fish thing).  I think it resonated with that type of supporter. And the only risk of offense was to a small crowd of folks who are already committed to McCain/Palin.  To most everyone everybody else, no harm, no foul.Â
And I think the response of the McCain side was equally appropriate.  They didn’t actually run an ad. They just threw out a sloppy youtube clip that was red meat to their most ardent followers.    They probably earned a few brownie points from that, and I doubt they irked anyone who matters to them.Â
I don’t think either side was so over the top as to turn off anyone in the middle.Â
But it was certainly entertaining to us political junkies. Â
And if you are still reading this, you just might be one of those too!
It’s pretty typical for out-of-context lines to be used against a candidate, though, so my sympathies are somewhat muted toward the Obama campaign.
I’ve felt from the start that this was not a big deal. But my sympathies for the Obama campaign are absolutely zero.
I would have some small-but-measurable sympathies, except that the Senator’s proxies cry racism even at the most innocent remarks. White women in the same video are "proof" of racism. Towers in the same video are "proof" of racism. Governor Paterson, whom I respected when he first rose to prominence, says that calling the Senator Obama a community organizer is racism. Governor Paterson is now no better than Reverend Sharpton in my eyes. And Senator Obama himself pre-emptively accused the McCain campaign of racism. I consider that utterly loathsome.
So if the Senator is now being unfairly accused of sexism, my sympathies are zero. Boo, hoo.
My spouse didn’t need to listen to one nor 28 nor 29 minutes, but most of the people with the opinions are those that don’t wear lipstick.
It is only a suspicion, but those that actually wear lipstick knew precisely what Obamamessiah was dumping on his but not her audience.
Scott: They’re mates!
Jay: I mostly agree with you. But, I didn’t think the line was impromptu. I think it’s pretty obviously something he’s been using in stump speeches forever, and his camp was caught flat-footed when it suddenly got used against him–they’d all heard it so many times.
By the way, the McCain camp has some very good internet gremlins taking care of business for them. They’re WICKED fast with videos that are primarily for the intertubes. Most of the time, anyway.
Dean,Â
OK. Impromptu was a bad choice of words on my part.  I should have said that Obama knew his comments weren’t innocuous. I think that’s the word that wanted to come out.Â
No matter, it’s on to new subjects now. Lots of interviews to ponder tonight…Â
But I fear Ike will make us forget about all of this stuff. Â
I hope I’m wrong.
I don’t think Obama meant anything by it – but his flock thought he did and they loved it.Â
Listen closely to the recording. Listen to the line and the crowd reaction. They were already roaring before he even hit the "punchline."
In their minds they thought Obama was drawing a line to Palin by referencing lipstick (and who out of the the four people on the two tickets wears lipstick?) because she had done so about herself with the lipstick on a pit bull line.
Obama didn’t draw a line to Palin. His followers simply thought he did and they loved it.
I think this thing is overblown, but at the same time I think he did it deliberately. Just ambiguous enough that you could argue either point. First the lipstick comment, then the old fish comment. In the primaries, he gave HRC the finger in one of his speeches. Amusing as a public speaker, but pretty classless as the man running for president… definitely not presidential. The more I see of him, the less I like him. I’m just waiting to see a video blog with O and P-diddy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhkq11UExcw
Again the argument in support of Obama is that he is unable or unwilling to recognize a phrase as being perceived as a slight against Palin, when virtually everyone in his audience did, and when Obama sees a slight in every word directed his way.
I love how your argument is that Obama is ignorant or naive about how his words are delivered, received and interpreted.
I give him more credit than that. So did everyone else before this gaffe.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Let me make my point a bit more clear and "pointed."
Before this gaffe the main thing Obama had going for him (pretty much the ONLY thing) was that he was such a brilliant writer and speaker. Now the ONLY defense for his statement is that he really didn’t know what he was saying.
I love all this. You can’t make this sort of stuff up. From genius to inarticulate fool at the speed of excuses…
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Dadman’s iPod Sampler
Make that leap for yourself at your own peril. You are too quick to assign motives.
I never once said he had suddenly lost is ability to communicate and if you wish to infer that I did then the error is on you.
Indeed I think it’s most likely he didn’t think all that heavily about a common turn of phrase and used it.
But, hell, if you want to say he used the phrase fully intending to link it to Palin, more power to you. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Clearly, you’re not and think anyone that is is making excuses for him.
I’m not. And no one else here is. We just happen to agree he didn’t mean it as it has been taken to be meant. But feel free to hang your dislike of Obama on this one sentence. Knock yourself out.
Just to toss out my vote, I’m with Jay on this one, and disagree with Dean. But I think the whole thing is a wash, especially when 9/11 cut short the sniping (thank God).
The Black Republican’s last blog post..An elephant not only in the room, but crashing the party
Kevin: I don’t think Cosmic was saying that about you, he was saying it about Obama.
Kevin:
I’m saying that this apparently singular inability to articulate something came at a very curious time, and with a very curious choice of phrase, at a very curious point in his speech, with very curious timing of delivery, and with a very curious crowd reaction.
Sure, all coincidence. Sure.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
I question the timing!
Heh.
Just a few days after Palin punctures his bubble of self-worship with her "lipstick on a bulldog" comment, Obama just happens to trot out "lipstick on a pig."
Sure… no doubt he never realized that it would be an obvious link.
Sure…. Absolutely. No problem.Â
I mean, he probably wasn’t even listening to her SPEECH. I mean why should he? She’s such a meaningless lightweight.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
When you give the same basic stump speech 3-10 times a day for 6-7 days per week for over a year, changing it every few weeks but rarely in a major way, you and everyone who travels with you stops hearing you. It’s not THAT hard to imagine.
Dean..
Well, for me, yeah, it is hard to imagine.
You guys have all simply fallen for it, which is exactly what Obama was counting on. You’ve been had. I believe Nixon called it “plausible deniability.” Well, it worked.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..?Cringe-worthy? Interview?
"Now the ONLY defense for his statement is that he really didn’t know what he was saying."
Or that like most politicians, he really didn’t expect anyone to be so pathetic as to try and pretend a phrase that lots of people, including McCain, have said without anyone batting an eye would become the latest in phony outrage.Â
It’s honestly quite hard to predict what people are going to pretend to find outrageous next.
Bad’s last blog post..Oprah Boycott: All Kinds of Stupid
Bad:
I agree that most of the outrage is phony. That doesn’t excuse the gaffe though.
See, there’s more to speaking than just “using phrases.” In fact the secret to speaking is knowing WHICH phrases to use and when to use them. And that’s supposed to be what Obama is good at.
I guess I still think he IS capable of knowing what he is saying and putting double meanings into his words. As I said, everyone else USED to think he was that clever.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama-Biden gaffe of the day
You guys have all simply fallen for it, which is exactly what Obama was counting on. You’ve been had. I believe Nixon called it “plausible deniability.†Well, it worked.
Why would someone want to issue an attack via public statement if people aren’t going to understand it was an attack in the first place?
Wouldn’t we WANT TO make sure that said attack was heard and understood for its effect? If he were attacking Palin it would be undeniable by anyone. Unfortunately the logic of someone issuing a statement that is an attack, but not wanting anyone to know it was an attack; thus negating any effect it would have had is kind of silly.
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