Hannity baselessly claimed Obama's "lipstick" comment was about Palin -- Huckabee, Wolfson disagree
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SUMMARY: On Hannity & Colmes, Mike Huckabee and Howard Wolfson both disagreed with Sean Hannity's claim that Sen. Barack Obama was "talking about [Gov.] Sarah Palin" when he made his "lipstick on a pig" comment. Wolfson asserted: "[T]here's no question that he was referring to [Sen.] John McCain, not Sarah Palin, and I think anything to the contrary is ridiculous."
During the September 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Fox News contributors Mike Huckabee and Howard Wolfson both disagreed with co-host Sean Hannity's baseless claim that Sen. Barack Obama was "talking about [Gov.] Sarah Palin" when he said, "[Y]ou know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig." Earlier during the program, Huckabee said of Obama's comment: "It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin." Similarly, Wolfson asserted: "[T]here's no question that he was referring to [Sen.] John McCain, not Sarah Palin, and I think anything to the contrary is ridiculous."
As Media Matters for America documented, like Hannity, The Wall Street Journal's Amy Chozick baselessly claimed that Obama was referring to Palin with his "lipstick on a pig" statement, when, in fact, Obama was alluding to McCain's policy platform in those comments. Moreover, the expression Obama used is common in political rhetoric; McCain used the same expression while discussing Sen. Hillary Clinton's health-care proposal in October 2007.
From the September 9 edition Fox News' of Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: And welcome to Hannity & Colmes. There is a developing story tonight. This is Governor Palin from last week in St. Paul.
PALIN [video clip]: I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull -- lipstick.
HANNITY: And this is Senator Obama just a few hours ago at a campaign stop in New Hampshire.
OBAMA [video clip]: John McCain says he's about change, too, except -- and so, I guess his whole angle is, "Watch out, George Bush. Except for economic policy, health-care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics, we're really going to shake things up in Washington." That's not change; that's just calling some -- the same thing -- something different. But you know, you can -- you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig.
HANNITY: Now, wow. We're going to have more on that in just a few minutes.
[...]
HANNITY: And joining us tonight with reaction and analysis is former presidential candidate, Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee.
Governor, before we get to the issue of me -- I'll respond to this later -- I want to -- you to get your reaction -- "[Y]ou can put lipstick on a pig; but it's still a pig."
HUCKABEE: It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin. He didn't reference her -- if you take the two sound bites together, it may sound like it, but I've been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that's maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So, I'm going to have to cut him slack.
Now, what he said about you, I don't cut him any slack, because everybody knows, Sean, you're an Irish pussycat, and a gentleman, a scholar, and a breeder of fine horses.
HANNITY: All right, fair. Let me --
HUCKABEE: There's no way he should be attacking you, but you should be thrilled. We have a saying that says this in the South: Just be glad when you're getting kicked from the rear 'cause it means you're still out front. So, Sean, take -- take some comfort in that.
HANNITY: I have my response coming up later, but I think this -- I disagree with you in large part. We have -- and I'm going to give a long setup here because there's information we need to share with our audience.
[...]
HANNITY: And joining us now, former Clinton communications director, Fox News contributor Howard Wolfson. Howard, it may surprise you, I read your blog.
WOLFSON: I appreciate that.
HANNITY: Well, and actually, it's very well written, and you're very honest on the blog, and you talked about the internal debate that you had in your campaign about raising the issue of sexism used by the Obama campaign. Now, Bill Clinton, we know, accused the Obama campaign of playing the race card, but you said that, in fact, that it had been reported correctly that we engaged in endless internal debates about whether to raise the issue of sexism, but never did, but in retrospect, there is broad agreement that Hillary Clinton was treated differently, in part, because she's a woman.
WOLFSON: Right. Let me just --
HANNITY: What do you -- go ahead.
WOLFSON: Let me just correct you for one thing -- by the press, not by Senator Obama. By the press.
HANNITY: But Bill Clinton said that he played the race card. You did accuse him of that.
WOLFSON: Bill Clinton said that -- but what I wrote today was that there's now broad agreement, and Sean, I think even you would agree that the press treated Senator Clinton differently because she was a woman, and we did have a real debate almost throughout all of 2008 whether or not we should do something in a big way about that, and we decided not to.
HANNITY: When Joe Biden says -- 'cause Hillary talked, and even Sarah Palin praised Hillary for the 18 cracks in the ceiling.
WOLFSON: Eighteen million.
HANNITY: I'm sorry, 18 million. I don't want to get it wrong.
WOLFSON: Exactly.
HANNITY: But when Joe Biden said that Palin would be a backward step for women, when he's introduced by a congressman and says there's no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick, I'm going to play this cut again, you know, Barack Obama.
Now, watch the crowd behind him. Even the AP reports that the crowd started laughing as soon as he said -- they broke out with laughter -- "you can put lipstick on a pig, but, you know, it's still a pig." Watch the crowd in the background here as we re-air this.
OBAMA [video clip]: You know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig.
HANNITY: He's talking about Sarah Palin. The crowd knew that.
WOLFSON: No. No, no, no, no. And I'm glad that you played the full bite at the top of the show, because it's clear that he's not talking about Sarah Palin. He doesn't even mention Sarah Palin's name; he's talking about John McCain.
HANNITY: That's naive and irresponsible to believe that.
WOLFSON: No, no, no. Look, I've watched an awful lot in this campaign. I think I have a pretty good antenna when it comes to sexism and I think that -- as I've said before on your show --
HANNITY: But you're supporting Obama, so you're going to --
WOLFSON: I am, but I --
ALAN COLMES (co-host): He was talking about change, Howard. That's what he was talking.
WOLFSON: Exactly. And there's no question that he was referring to John McCain, not Sarah Palin, and I think anything to the contrary is ridiculous.
Obama answered this childish attack...Seems like he was prepared for this attack on him OR did he lure the idiot screamers into this match? Obama now has an open platform to talk about the issues rather than swiftboating.
Ready to hit the post button..and here comes Princess Palin and the other guy. She seems to be ready for the same speech. Did you know that McCain has fought challenges? And her husband works? ETC ETC ETC. But McCain slipped up and caved into the enemy...How many POW's that didn't CAVE IN died honoring the country? Roseanne Palin didn't actually say that.
<Ahem!>
George "Bud" Day was seventeen in late 1942 when he badgered his parents into allowing him to volunteer for the Marine Corps. He spent nearly three years in the South Pacific during World War II, then returned home, went to college, and got a law degree. In 1950, he joined the Air National Guard. When he was called up for active duty a year later, he applied for pilot training and flew fighter jets during the Korean War. After being promoted to captain in 1955, he decided to become a "lifer" in the Air Force.
In 1967, Day, now a major, was put in command of a squadron of F-100s in Vietnam involved in a top-secret program. Nicknamed the Misty Super Facs, their mission was to fly over North Vietnam and Laos as "forward air controllers," selecting military targets and calling in air strikes on them. On August 26, ground fire hit Day's plane, destroying its hydraulic controls and forcing it into a steep dive. When he ejected, he smashed against the fuselage and broke his arm in three places. North Vietnamese militiamen below, seeing his parachute open, were waiting for him when he landed. They marched Day to a camouflaged underground shelter. When he refused to answer his captors' questions, they staged a mock execution, then hung him from a rafter by his feet for several hours. Certain that he was so badly hurt that he wouldn't try to get away, they tied him up with loosely knotted rope. On his fifth day in the camp, while a pair of distracted teenage soldiers stood guard, he untied himself and escaped.
On his second night on the run, Day was sleeping in thick undergrowth when either a bomb or a rocket landed nearby. The concussion left him bleeding from his ears and sinuses and sent shrapnel into his leg. Even so, he continued to hobble south for the next several days, eating berries and frogs and successfully evading enemy patrols.
Sometime between the twelfth and fifteenth day after his escape -- he had lost track of time -- Day heard helicopters and stumbled toward the sound. It was U.S. choppers evacuating a Marine unit, but they left just as he got to the landing zone. The next morning, still heading south, he ran into a North Vietnamese Army patrol. As he limped toward the jungle, he was shot in the leg and hand and captured soon afterward. He was taken back to the camp from which he had escaped and subjected to more torture.
A few days later he was moved to the "Hanoi Hilton." His untreated wounds were infected, and he was suffering from malnutrition and unable to perform even the simplest task for himself. The fingers on both hands were curled into fists as a result of his torture; he regained some motion by peeling them back, flattening them against the wall of his cell, and leaning into them with his full weight.
For more than five years, Day resisted the North Vietnamese guards who tortured him. On one occasion in 1971, when guards burst in with rifles as some of the American prisoners gathered for a forbidden religious service, Major Day stood up, looked down the muzzles of the guns, and began to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." The other men, including James Stockdale, the ranking U.S. officer in the prison, joined him.
If you don't recall who James Stockdale was, he ran for VP with Ross Perot. Remember how the GOP treated that P.O.W.?
What did they call McCain in the Hanoi Hilton? "Hollywood" because he was always looking for attention.
And yeah, Stockdale was dissed more than Kerry the the GOP.
You are a shameless dirtbag.
You mean the GOP icons aren't on the same page?
I doubt the DNC is either, but... This almost makes it sound comedic
Really that's so unlike you Sean.
UPDATE ON SARAHs' SPEECH....
SAME SPEECH......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Obama is the pig in this story.
Duh. But by playing only the "...is still a pig" portion of Obama's statement without the lead-in, following the clip of Palin's "zinger" about pit bulls with lipstick, hannity was implying that the reference was to Palin being the pig. Hannity was wrong. Again.
hannity's a dishonest moron, but he's YOUR dishonest moron. I feel the love...
HANNITY: I have my response coming up later, but I think this -- I disagree with you in large part. We have -- and I'm going to give a long setup here because there's information we need to share with our audience.
TRANSLATION: "I have to put a lot of stuff out there to confuse my viewers."
You have to be really confused to believe that you're going to get any useful information from watching Sean Hannity on TV, or listening to his radio pukefest.
And Sean? In case you or someone on your staff is reading this thread - bite me.
WOLFSON: Exactly. And there's no question that he was referring to John McCain, not Sarah Palin, and I think anything to the contrary is ridiculous.
I agree, Sean Hannity IS ridiculous.
The.
Dumbest.
Guy.
In.
Media.
Bar.
None.
He surrounds himself with Rove potege's and expects us to believe he's a man of character?
She tells the country that we wish death on our own family because we justice loving liberals are concerned with the Habeus Corpus rights of us all?
They have no character to assassinate. They are groveling pigs.
"Sean, you're...a breeder of fine horses." - Mike Huckabee
Is Huckabee insinuating that Hannity engages in beastiality? Someone call Rick Santorum!!!
<jk!!!>
"Sean, you're...a breeder of fine horses." - Mike Huckabee
Is Huckabee insinuating that Hannity engages in beastiality?
Actually, I think that Governor Huckleberry is making reference to the fact that everything that comes out of Sean Hannity's mouth is horses**t.
Huckabee really did call out Hannity on his own show for peddling horse manure.
Maybe ol' Mike has a Christian conscience after all!
It's now apparent that John McCain will stoop to anything to distract voters, as well as compromise his own integrity in acting all pissy over something as ridiculous as this. He should be ashamed. I don't care about Hannity, his phoniness is expected - but the McCain campaign is asking us to entrust the presidency to someone who will wallow in the mud with "pigs" to get the job. It's despicable.
Good for Obama, enough is enough.
And don't forget - McCain has people who can distract people for him, like Jeff Christie, Sean Hannity, and Bill O.
And this starts to bring up the question of all the issues that aren't being brought to the table right now. Right now the Bridge to Nowhere is a bigger issue than the WOT and illegal immigration!
http://boortz.com/cgi-bin/vpolls/pollVote.cgi
Obama's lipstick on a pig comment...
This is disgusting! He really stepped in it now!
57%
Eh, it's a common phrase that even John McCain has used in reference to Hillary's healthcare policy. No big deal.
40%
You go Obama! I think it's a totally valid remark.
2%
Exactly, Westmoreland was raised in 1950's Georgia, and he didn't know that there was a racial connotation to "uppity"? He's supposed to get the benefit of the doubt, while we also are supposed to believe that Obama was clearly attacking Palin.
Nobody is stupid enough to genuinely believe these things. You have to be wildly partisan or grossly misinformed in order to claim them.
I don't even think he was talking about McCain but the policies, putting lipstick on the last 8 years thinking you can get another4.
Which... God help us it looks like (at the moment) much more likely than it had before.
It is ironic though that after the way Obama surrogates came out over and over with with accusations about anything that could remotely be called race baiting (and ruining (almost) Big Dawg's reputation they are now having it done to them. Of course sexism isn't nearly as "serious" in the media's and publics eyes as racism apparently.
Then when they claimed McShame was using the race baiting (I forget when or if it was true) and McC came back so aggressively that nullified the calling it when it happened anymore, sadly.
There was something in McShames speech that was veiled racism and no one ever called it. I have to look at the transcript to find it- which I dread given the tone, content and length. UGH.
OOPS, forgot something--
Interesting that they stop there and don't play the "fish" part isn't it?
That would certainly clarify and make plain what he said.
sigh.
I've so had it with this fricking election and here I was, ms. pollyanna back when the primary narrowed down to O and C thinking how wonderful we Dem''s were, how great that we finally broke not one but two barriers--even if shortly thereafter the hate mongering started and C was marginalized as the same old thing.
And when are they going to stop calling her a centrist? The media constantly say that and the Hill Haters equate her with neocons for crying out loud!
Which is ludicrous if you look at any analysis of her votes, bills etc. She is a far left Dem while Obama is much more centrist "rank and file".
www.govtrack.us
Anyway, someone should call them on not playing the fish part of this clip dammitalltohell!
Republican campaigners are geniuses.
The sooner we accept that the better.
John McCain's press secretary during the Keating S&L scandal, a woman named Torie Clarke, wrote a book in 2006 about this sort of political spin.
The title?
Lipstick on a Pig
You just can't make this stuff up.