can we knock off the whole “gaffe hunting” thing? Barack Obama uses the words “my Muslim faith,” and some folks jump on it and claim he’s admitted that he’s really a Muslim. If you read the transcript or watch the video, it’s clear he didn’t do any such thing (though George Stephanopoulos didn’t help him any); rather, this was simply “a reference to those falsely imputing Islam to him,” if a clumsily-phrased one. And yet there are some trying to turn it into a gaffe, because that appears to be what we do in American politics these days: look for something we can misinterpret, and then pounce.Similarly, when Sarah Palin calls Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “too big and too expensive to the taxpayers,” the cry goes up from the Left: “A gaffe! A gaffe!” Again, it wasn’t. Granted the technical truth of the statement that these institutions “aren’t taxpayer funded but operate as private companies,” Gov. Palin was just responding to the same concern Sen. Obama had raised, that they “should either should either operate as public entities without profit, or as private companies that won’t be rescued if they fall into trouble.” As it is, as entities created and sponsored by the federal government, they’ve effectively been private companies backstopped by national taxpayers, free to do whatever was profitable in the short term in the assurance that they’d be bailed out if it all went sour. As is indeed happening, which is why the McCain/Palin ticket has them firmly fixed in the crosshairs as “too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.”Finally, the one most annoying to me, the whole kerfuffle over “lipstick on a pig.” I’m all for defending Gov. Palin from people going after her children, or phony attacks on her record, but honestly, this is just ridiculous. Sen. Obama used a standard Americanism, one which Sen. McCain has used before, as many, many Americans have; granted, he delivered it awkwardly, and the audience does seem to have taken it as a shot at Gov. Palin, but still, it’s just a standard bit of American lingo. Conservatives howl when liberals do this to us—why on earth dignify this tactic by using it ourselves? If some who see the video take it that way and get mad at Sen. Obama, then so be it, but I agree with Roger Kimball: “Palin Rule #1: No whining! (Give the pig thing a rest)” Let Gov. Palin come up with a wisecrack for her next couple stump speeches, and let it go. (Sen. Obama would be well advised to drop it as well, before he makes things worse.)Now, some have pointed out that if he didn’t intend the “lipstick on a pig” line as a shot at Gov. Palin, Sen. Obama was unwise to use it, and I think that’s true; that, plus the “Muslim faith” line, are definite signs that the golden tongue has gone a bit clumsy just at the moment. As someone pointed out to Hugh Hewitt in an e-mail, “he hasn’t had a ‘good communicator’ day since his acceptance speech,” which is deadly for a campaign that has depended on his ability to communicate—when you combine Sen. Obama’s recent infelicities with the walking gaffe track that is Joe Biden, you get a very bad day or two indeed; but while that may well be cause for some thoughtful analysis as to why his campaign is missing its mark, I don’t think it justifies attack ads and charges of sexism. Not even close.
