Obama’s Disastrous Gaffe-Laden Press Conference

President-elect Barack Obama’s honeymoon abruptly ended yesterday when he insulted Fox News, Nancy Reagan and dogs at his first post-election press conference. Conservatives, who had generously given Obama the benefit of the doubt in the days after the election, immediately pounced on Obama’s ill-chosen remarks, which threaten to derail his presidency before it even begins.

Conservatives were shocked when Obama snubbed Fox News, the country's only fair and balanced network, by not calling on its reporter during the press conference. “Wisdom and judiciousness were not exactly evident,” scolded RedState, where “wisdom and judiciousness” are dispensed by the bucketful. Apparently, Obama still holds a grudge against the network, and its president Roger Ailes, for reporting that he went to a madrassa as a child, joking about assassinating him, referring to him as a socialist, attacking him for calling his grandmother a “typical white person,” calling his cigarette smoking “"a dirty little secret" and asking its viewers “Would you vote for a smoker?,” mixing him up with black former congressman Harold Ford Jr., making a joke that his name was similar to Osama Bin Laden’s and who knows what other perceived slights. Unfortunately, the Fox reporter was prevented from asking such very important questions as which cabinet post William Ayers will be appointed to and which policies from the Communist Manifesto Obama was planning to implement first.

“This childish obsession over Fox News is really beneath the dignity of the White House,” said Jammie Wearing Fool, who could certainly teach our new President a thing or two about dignity. “George W. Bush has been mercilessly pummelled by most of the media during his term but has never acted so petulantly about any media outlets.” Indeed, can you imagine President Bush petulantly snubbing journalists or news organizations the way Obama did because he is angry at their reporting? Apparently, Obama is already laying the groundwork for his secret plan to repeal the First Amendment.

Ignoring Fox News was bad enough, but then Obama went out of his way to insult Nancy Reagan, accusing her of holding séances in the White House. When he learned that Reagan did not hold séances in the White House but merely consulted with astrologers and arranged the White House schedule based on favorable alignments of the planets, Obama called Reagan to apologize for his tasteless joke. That wasn’t enough for many outraged conservatives who refused to accept his “weak apology.” “He's actually more immature than many of us suspected and feared,” said Dan Riehl, who took the high road, as usual, and made a very funny but mature joke about Obama’s dead grandmother. Stop the ACLU thought Obama’s joke displayed a lack of “professionalism” and called him a “jerk,” as one professional to another.

Obama had apparently mixed up Reagan with Mary Todd Lincoln who did hold séances in the White House, which is just as bad since she was the wife of the beloved first Republican President and unable to defend herself because she is no longer living. Is this the kind of bipartisanship we can expect from President Obama? What deceased wives of Republican Presidents will he insult next? President-elect Obama owes Mrs. Lincoln an apology even if he has to hold a séance to make it properly.

But the worst gaffe Obama made at his disastrous press conference was when he referred to mixed-breed dogs (or “differently bred” dogs, as they prefer to be called) using the dogist term “mutts.” “Mutt” is a deeply offensive word to working-class dogs and their owners. Although Obama tried to recover and hastily added the words, “like me,” the damage was already done. “This guy has a real complex about himself, a megalomania that especially manifests when he speaks of others,” wrote MacRanger at Macsmind, whose biracial friend was "outraged." I imagine we will be hearing a lot from MacRanger's outraged biracial friend in the coming years whenever the issue of race comes up. Jules Crittenden compared Obama’s use of the word “mutt” to the time dog-torturing President Lyndon Johnson showed the press his scar. Paterico was reminded of the time Obama callously insulted pigs. Is no mammal safe from Obama’s sharp tongue?

Differently bred dogs are tired of being subjected to these kinds of cheap cur slurs, just as they resent the snotty attitudes of elitist, pedigreed show dogs who look down on them as canines who bitterly cling to their bones and chew toys. “Mutt,” which some particularly sensitive dog-owners refer to as the “M-word,” is a derogatory term that was first coined in 1906 and is short for “muttonhead,” which means a “stupid person.” It is bad enough when "mutt" is used to refer to a person, but when hurled at a dog, which cannot defend itself, it is an extremely offensive slur. It took years for dog-rights activists to get people to use the term "mongrel," until that term was scrapped in favor of the more politically correct designations “mixed-breed” and “differently bred.” Some progressive groups believe that all breed distinctions should be avoided and are trying to popularize the term "Dog-American" to refer to all dogs, from shih tzus to cockapoos, regardless of breed.

Before Obama used this unfortunate term, Muttgate was already threatening to splinter his fragile coalition and derail the Obama presidency. Obama’s promise to buy his daughters a puppy after the election has cost Obama quite a bit of support. PETA would no doubt prefer that Obama not enslave any animals at all, or at the very least save one from death row. Little girls who wanted their daddies to give them ponies supported Hillary in the primaries and refused to support Obama in the general election when their fathers told them that even Obama’s girls were not getting a pony so they should just shut up about it. Cat lovers, who are mostly independent voters, held out hope until the last minute that Obama would signal that he was going to get his girls a cat. Although many of them ended up voting for Obama, they are sure to have their claws out after his flagrant disregard of felines at the press conference. Meanwhile, the powerful ferret lobby, which single-handedly destroyed the presidential aspirations of Rudy Giuliani (if you don’t count Giuliani himself), was taking a wait-and-see approach to Obama, but they are probably already marshalling their musky, bad-tempered forces after yesterday’s news conference. Obama should be particularly wary of this interest group since ferret owners are notorious for being very sick and angry people.

Worst of all, Obama’s stunning announcement that he was seeking a “hypoallergenic” dog for his daughters finally confirmed the fears of many conservatives, such as Focus on the Family, that Obama is just like Hitler, who also excited crowds and was similarly elevated to power through the democratic process before he became a ruthless dictator. "Hypoallergenic" is, of course, a codeword for dogs that are pure breeds, which are dogs that have been bred according to the very same kind of evil eugenics practiced by the Nazis.

No matter what breed of dog or other pet Obama’s family ends up getting, Obama is sure to disillusion a large part of his constituency and scuttle any chance his administration has of getting anything done. It is a tragedy that a presidency that had so much promise and potential, which patriotic conservatives who love their country really were pulling for, should go down in flames so soon.

Carnivals: Carnival of Cats, Puppy in Training, Carnival of the Liberals, Everything Worth Reading

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Quit Doggin' Dog the Bounty Hunter

Can't a man use an offensive racial epithet in the privacy of his own home anymore without jeopardizing his lucrative reality television program? Duane "Dog" Chapman, star of A&E's Dog the Bounty Hunter has had his show suspended after he was taped saying the N-word repeatedly and he is devastated. Now reporters are hounding the poor bounty hunter, walking around his neighborhood, showing his picture to friends and neighbors, saying, "Have you seen this man? Do you know where we can find him? We just want to talk to him."

The irony of this whole thing is that anyone who knows Dog -- and who doesn't feel they know him from his well-edited television program -- knows that he isn't a racist. This whole misunderstanding started when he was actually trying to protect his son's black girlfriend from having to hear all the racial epithets he and the members of his crew and family say in a typical day. He was afraid they just wouldn't be able to stop themselves from using the N-word around her and she might take offense. We all know how touchy black people can be about these things, which is why Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck have been forced to stop socializing with all their black friends. So Dog told his son, Tucker, that he would either have to dump his girlfriend or quit the show. It was really for her own good, to spare her feelings.

"I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore or whatever," Dog patiently explained to Tucker. "It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word n----r sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fucking n----r heard us say n----r and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa [Dog's daughter] was dating a n----r, we would all say 'f--k you!' And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da... it's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word n----r. We don't mean you f--king scum n----r without a soul. We don't mean that s--t. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because 'I'm in love for 7 months' - f--k that! So, I'll help you get another job but you can not work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder."

"I don't even know what to say," Tucker replied.

It turned out that Dog was right to be worried about someone recording his words and people misconstruing them. Unbeknownst to him, Tucker taped their telephone conversation and sold it to the National Enquirer. If this incident shows anything, it shows what a good father Dog was in the way he instilled his values into his son. After all, Dog's work often depends on family members turning in their relatives.

Now America has the wrong idea about Dog even though it's hard to see how anyone could interpret his words as racist. As he explained to his son, when he uses the word n----r, he means it in the good way. In fact, Dog always thought of himself as practically an honorary black person: "There’s a special connection that I thought I had between me and black America," he explained. "And I used to say, 'I’m black, too.' In other words, I — my whole life I’ve been called a half-breed, a convict, king of the trailer trash, this and that. I take that and stand. So when I stood there and said, 'I kind of know what you feel like, because I’ve been there, too, I felt that I could embrace and like, as brothers or, even as a black woman, say the word."

And he didn't want his son to break up with his girlfriend just because she was black. If Tucker brought a Jew home, Dog would have been worried that his girlfriend would hear them making anti-Semitic remarks. Or if Tucker had a homosexual lover, think how difficult it would have been for the family not to let the word "faggot" slip out. Yet people insist on making it a racial thing.

It's hard not to feel sympathy for Dog, who still has a lot of fans. Even Whoopi Goldberg defended Dog on The View (she's not the one who thinks the world is flat, she's the other one), claiming that she uses racial slurs around her house all the time. Who doesn't? And Dog is really trying hard to make amends. Like Michael Richards, Mel Gibson and Don Imus, Dog has gone on CNN's Larry King and made a tearful apology. He went on Sean Hannity on Fox and cried there, too, saying "If I could kill myself and people would forgive me, I would do that," an offer some people are considering. He has asked to meet with the Rev. Al Sharpton. He has promised to seek counseling for anger management and to do something about his inability to stop saying the word n----r, which could take years of work. But that's not all. To show just how sorry he is Dog is making arrangements to spend eternity surrounded by black people. He wants to be buried at a slave burial ground near George Washington's home, Mount Vernon in Virginia. "I want to be buried right where they're at because I will never be forgiven as (long as) I'm alive," Chapman said. After he is dead, Dog should have no problem at all being around black people and not saying the word n----r. I think we all can be pretty sure of that.

Update: Now a Cat has had a remark he made "miscontrued" as racist, too. KT Cat was criticized when he wrote these words on his blog: "Blacks in America have become the perfect laboratory for the consequences of annihilating traditional sexual mores. At 70% illegitimacy, they have destroyed civilization at the molecular level. Still think it doesn't matter? Live it up, guys. Enjoy." Unfortunately, some people think that claiming blacks are destroying civilization is racist for some reason. But Cat was luckier than Dog. All he had to do was erase the statement from his post and all comments that referred to it and now it's like he never said it.


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Jon Swift, Duane Chapman, Dog the Bounty Hunter, A&E, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, National Enquirer, Larry King, Don Imus, Racism, Television, Media
Carnivals: Carnival of Television, Celebrity Gossip Carnival

At the Emmys Fox Guards the Hollywood Henhouse of Obscenity

In the midst of another memorable acceptance speech at this year's Emmys Sally Field was cut off by Fox, the network broadcasting the awards show, when she said, "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no G-ddamned wars in the first place." Predictably, many liberals are in a tizzy, unjustly accusing Fox of censoring Field because of her traitorous anti-war views.

However, as others have pointed out, Fox's actions had nothing whatsoever to do with the political message of Field's speech. She was cut off not because her views are profane but only because she used the extremely offensive profanity "G-ddamned," which violates the Ten Commandments on which our Constitution is based. Although the FCC has been notoriously lax in fining broadcasters for using this particular obscenity, you can't take too many chances with the FCC and Fox really had no choice but to make sure the word did not air.

While I certainly applaud Fox for its efforts to protect us from words and images that could upset us, I think that Fox could do a much better job guarding its own henhouse. On Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox, on the September 14 "Pinheads & Patriots" segment, O'Reilly broadcasts Kanye West's obscenity laced tirade backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. All of West's obscenities are bleeped out with the exception of one word: "G-ddamned." You can see the video of the segment by clicking on the link that says "Watch Pinheads & Patriots" here.

In the transcript all of the obscenities are replaced with "(expletive deleted)" except for the one obscenity banned in the Second Commandment:

Man, that's two years in a row, man! Get off this (expletive), man. I love these people but man. G-ddamn, man. Give a (expletive deleted) a chance, man. Give a black man a chance. I'm trying hard, man. I got the (expletive deleted) number one record, man. I'm trying, man. I don't give a (expletive deleted).

I am extremely disappointed in Fox News and Bill O'Reilly for broadcasting this horribly obscene word when children might be listening. Perhaps somebody with experience reporting transgressions to government agencies such as Uncle Jimbo at Black Five could report O'Reilly to the FCC. And I hope that all of my readers will write to Mr. O'Reilly at oreilly@foxnews.com and express your outrage at this coursening of our culture. I hope you will do it for the children.

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