April 23, 2008

"Her message is unapologetically emasculating."

Hillary's message is:
If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?
Crackers. Crackers, indeed. Are we allowed to say "crackers"? Well, we can say waffles, so why not, in the grand scheme of bad carbohydrates, say crackers?

Anyway, that's Maureen Dowd, wielding extreme Dowdiness this morning:
In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage and a Philly cheese steak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak.

But this is clearly a man who can’t wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites. That was made plain with his cri de coeur at the Glider Diner in Scranton when a reporter asked him about Jimmy Carter and Hamas.

“Why” he pleaded, sounding a bit, dare we say, bitter, “can’t I just eat my waffle?”

His subtext was obvious: Why can’t I just be president? Why do I have to keep eating these gooey waffles and answering these gotcha questions and debating this gonzo woman?
Gooey... gotcha... gonzo...

What's the next word in that series?

Gonad!

She's so emasculating.

26 comments:

Mortimer Brezny said...

You can say cracker, honky, and paleface. The real question is whether Obama ever said howlie when he was in Hawaii.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haole

rhhardin said...

Gonad isn't sex-specific, except that somebody thought that they needed a euphemism for testicle, which hasn't happened for ovary.

Grow some ovaries, Obama!

knox said...

The media hurts candidates (unwittingly) by coddling them as they've done Obama. He's not used to being challenged, and obviously feels entitled.

Hillary used to be the beneficiary of this treatment. Must be especially painful when they turn on you.

I will admit I used to think Obama was impressively charming, if nothing else. Now he just seems like a prissy jerk.

rhhardin said...

The impressively charming reaction has always been baffling, as has been the rhetorical skill one.

Obama has always been a transparent phoney ; the first impression is the same as the last, he thinks he's talking to morons.

Perhaps, in some respects, he has been. Now other people are coming online.

Vibrating women are not the only demographic.

Bob said...

If you whine about the reporters not letting you eat your waffle in peace, you'll never have the leadership ability to run the country. A real leader would have arranged to take his meals in peace, a lesser leader would have run off the reporters; a non-leader would sit there and whine about it.

Simon said...

Like most Obama backers - tacit or otherwise - Dowd simply assumes that the only question is how to force Clinton out for the good of the party; she even ends on a plea for Clinton to take herself out back and put her campaign down. It just doesn't seem to occur to her that if the primary is hurting the party, it takes two to tango, and maybe the other candidate -- the guy who, in Dowd's own words, can't "shake [Clinton] off," can't "put [her] in [her] place," can't "show [her] the door," "has missed several opportunities to smash the ball over the net and end the game," "complains about the politics of scoring points ... [without comprehending that] to win, you’ve got to score points," "tanked in the Philadelphia debate" (and now refuses to risk debating again), and most of all, can't wait to get away from all these ordinary people with their ordinary diners and unpretentious "carbo-load[ed]" food (and all this in the setting of a friendly primary!) -- maybe he should pull out.

Melinda said...

“Why” he pleaded, sounding a bit, dare we say, bitter, “can’t I just eat my waffle?”

That's how I'm beginning to feel about this whole primary season. Then again, I'm not running for anything except maybe my life.

Mortimer Brezny said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
P_J said...

Simon makes a good point. Why hasn't Obama been able to put her away? You'd think the fact that half of the Democratic voters don't want Obama would raise some questions about the man and/or his campaign, but all we hear is how Hillary needs to drop out. How about some articles on why Obama is unappealing to half of the party?

Mortimer Brezny said...

maybe he should pull out.

The Simon doth protest too much.

Simon said...

Jeff - Obama backers are bitter, so they cling to their sense of entitlement to the nomination.

John Fischer said...

It'll be nice to finally get these people out of Philly so I can eat my waffles in peace.

Mortimer Brezny said...

Obama backers are bitter, so they cling to their sense of entitlement to the nomination.

The only thing that's bitter here is the residue of hope and change in Simon's mouth.

former law student said...

Hillary's message is:
If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me,


Obama is a gentleman who was raised to believe that no matter how great the provocation, you cannot strike a lady.

cold pizza said...

"Gooey... gotcha... gonzo...
What's the next word in that series? Gonad!"

But by leaving the G-word out, removing it, so-to-speak before it is even spoken, she metephorically removes the gonads from BO, thus emphasizing his loss of masculinity. Post-modernist, deconstructed GENIUS!

By not mentioning _____, she can call attention to, and emphasize the same while still maintaining deniability. AxelRove! YMB!

cold pizza said...

"Gooey... gotcha... gonzo...
What's the next word in that series? Gonad!"

But by leaving the G-word out, removing it, so-to-speak before it is even spoken, she metephorically removes the gonads from BO, thus emphasizing his loss of masculinity. Post-modernist, deconstructed GENIUS!

By not mentioning _____, she can call attention to, and emphasize the same while still maintaining deniability. AxelRove! YMB! -cp

george smith said...

Obama is all duck and no dinner.

titusdouwantoreallyhurtme said...

This was a great editorial by Dowd.

She nails it.

vbspurs said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eMaqDQLoe4

Wahey! I love Wallace & Gromit.

Cheers,
Victoria

vbspurs said...

Simon makes a good point. Why hasn't Obama been able to put her away?

Because she's a woman, in a party which values making those politically correct statements.

Because Hillary comes with Bill Clinton, who those voters like despite his faults (maybe because of them) and remember the good times of the "90s".

Because, to those "uncomfortable" with Obama, she offers a lifeline of choice.

If she were Mike Huckabee, she would've been outties long ago. That she's Hillary Clinton is about 50% the reason why she's still there.

Cheers,
Victoria

blake said...

Simon,

Are you suggesting the front-runner should drop out?

I mean, yeah, it takes two to tango and all that, but that's sort of a bold suggestion: "Since this is hurting the party and since the second place guy won't drop out, the leader should."

That's quite a demand to make of Obama.

P_J said...

Obama is a gentleman who was raised to believe that no matter how great the provocation, you cannot strike a lady.

Riiight. I forgot he's above all those ugly political tactics.

You do know how a politician is lying, don't you?

former law student said...

I don't know that the coming forward of the General and the CPO was Obama's doing. The only reference to the Obama campaign was on that ABC blog. The general was really ticked off about HRC's lying about sniper fire; he had published an op ed in the NYPost in late March, and was widely quoted contradicting HRC's account. The Philly papers published two letters by Kotyk supporting Obama this month.

P_J said...

From the article:

"...it was clear the Obama campaign was not ready to look over this issue, calling a conference call with reporters and offering up veterans who have faced sniper fire to take issue with Clinton’s claim." (emphasis added)

Click your heels three times and chant, "Change, change, change." Maybe it will be true.

I don't think Obama's any worse than any other politician. I just get tired of him playing the same games while claiming to be different.

As Ambivablog correctly writes today, Obama wants to heal a divide by standing on one side and inviting everyone to agree with him. If we don't, we're divisive, fearful, selfish, backwards, or racist. Same old s**t, just more pretentious and self-righteous. No thanks.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I see subtle signs that Obama could have a really bad temper- what do you think Mort?

former law student said...

Pastor Jeff -- none of the rest of the media covered the "Obama campaign conference call" story. The ABC blogticle was mostly a series of quotes by Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson. If the Obama campaign really organized a Hillary-bashing conference call, I would expect more than one report in all the MSM. And I would expect the report to include the name of the responsible "Obama campaign" person. Conference calls are organized by individuals, not amorphous campaigns.