MASSIVE UPDATE, including two blogosphere -Gates. The updated version of the previous diary was excruciatingly long, and I figure it might have been hell on some people’s computers. Much easier to just separate it out. I think this one’s more pictures than text, so it shouldn’t be as painful to read.
Jay Z-Gate, Parts I and II
Part 1. 99 Problems-Gate, courtesy of canadian gal and thatpurplestuff
In January of 2008, controversy flared when reports appeared that,
As Obama and his wife, Michelle, strolled triumphantly into his victory party in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 3, Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” was blaring. In it, Jay raps, “I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one.”
Some listeners took it as a not-so-sly reference to Hillary.
Amusingly enough, the song “99 Problems” actually appeared at another Obama event: the Obama for America staff ball in D.C. on January 21, 2009, the evening after the inauguration. Jay-Z performed the song live. Only major difference? The word “bitch” was replaced with “Bush”.
Part II. Brush Off-Gate, courtesy of thatpurplestuff
In the second Jay-Z incident of 2008, Obama mentioned the mudslinging that had become so prevalent on the campaign trail at a rally and made a “brushing” motion. The gesture was in reference to Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” and was meant to depict literally brushing mud off, but a number of Clinton supporters found it dismissive and offensive. A few hysterics even seemed to be under the impression that Obama was indicating that he was brushing her off his shoulders. Whatever the hell that means.
Monster-Gate, courtesy of John Allen
In March of 2008, Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power, who was working with the Obama campaign as an unpaid foreign policy advisor, remarked of Senator Clinton, “She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything.” The comment was made to a reporter from a Scottish newspaper and was meant to remain private, but it ended up in print regardless. It was a source of tremendous outrage, and Power resigned to spare the Obama campaign any further controversy. Brit recently informed us that President Obama has just chosen her as senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council. She will be in regular contact with Secretary of State Clinton.
Tip-Gate, courtesy of Kysen
This one’s a tad embarrassing. It was Hillary’s TexasDarlin moment. In October of 2007, Anita Esterday, a waitress at Maid-Rite in Toledo, Iowa, informed NPR’s David Greene that “nobody got left a tip” on Oct. 8, when Clinton sat at the lunch counter and ordered up the restaurant’s famous loose-meat sandwich.
Clinton spokesman Phil Singer wrote to NPR in an e-mail: “The campaign spent $157 and left a $100 tip at the Maid-Rite Restaurant. Wish you had checked in with us beforehand.”
There was a good deal of confusion over whether other waiters and waitresses received tips from the Clinton campaign, but Maid-Rite manager Brad Crawford assured the public, “Where Hillary was sitting, there was no tip left.” Clearly this is what lost Hillary the Iowa Caucus and set off a chain of events that resulted in her losing the nomination. All because she neglected to tip for her loose meat.
Uncle-Gate, courtesy of KLRinLA
In May of 2008, Obama got himself into trouble with a story about his great uncle. He said that his uncle had helped liberate Auschwitz, when in fact it had been Buchenwald, and conservative pundits went wild.
Obama’s great uncle helped liberate Buchenwald, not Auschwitz, and Obama got it wrong. . . . It’s unclear as of now whether Obama just mixed up the names, or he got his facts wrong, or through family lore he’d been told the wrong tale.
And now we know the truth– his great uncle as part of the 89th Infantry Division helped liberate Ohrdruf, a sub-camp at Buchenwald.
Something tells me that those whom his uncle helped liberate were not overly fussed by Obama’s mix up of the camp names.
Three Ball-Gate, courtesy of KLRinLA
In early May of 2008, when Hillary’s last hope for the nomination rested in the hands of the super delegates, James Carville argued that in order to gain enough supers to give Obama the nomination, he needed to show them that he could throw a punch. In a comment resembling a joke (weirdly sexist though it may have been), he suggested that Obama was short a testicle. He said of Hillary, “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.”
Hospital-Gate, courtesy of louisprandtl
In April of 2008, in the wake of Sniper-Gate, Hillary began regularly telling a story she had heard on the campaign trail about a pregnant woman who had been denied medical aid by a hospital because she was without insurance and couldn’t pay them $100:
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“The hospital said, ‘Well, you don’t have insurance,'” Clinton said. “She said, ‘No, I don’t.’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t see you until you give $100.’ She said, ‘Where am I going to get $100?’ The next time she came back to the hospital, she came in an ambulance,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “She was in distress. The doctors and the nurses worked on her and couldn’t save the baby.”
As it turned out, the hospital (O’Bleness) at which the young woman lost the baby was not the hospital which originally turned her away. O’Bleness protested so strongly that Clinton was caught up in yet another whirlwind of controversy and accused of inventing another tale in the vein of Sniper-Gate. Clinton originally heard the story from an Ohio sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman. Although she had a few of her facts mixed up, the gist of the story was fundamentally true.
Sweetie-Gate, courtesy of Michelle
A debate about what is acceptable for a man to call a woman was born from a brief aside by Obama in May, 2008. While at a campaign stop, Obama was asked a question prior to the arranged question/answer meeting with the press. He answered the reporter, Peggy Agar, with, “Hold on a second, sweetie. We’ll hold a press avail.” Obama later called the reporter to apologize for calling her “sweetie”, calling it a “bad habit” and declaring himself “duly chastened.” He had indeed used “sweetie” in a previous campaign setting, telling a supporter, “Sweetie, if I start with a picture I will never get out of here.” Our beloved engels took it as a great personal affront (my poor baby!) and defiantly declared, “Welcome to a landslide without white working class, latinos, women and holding on sweeties” in its sig throughout the rest of the Primaries. I fell in love with teh engels not long thereafter, and our whirlwind blog romance continues to this day.
Plant-Gate, courtesy of Steve M
O noes, the Clinton campaign “planted” a student at a rally to ask Hillary a question. Teh horr0rz.
In an exclusive on-camera interview with CNN, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, said giving anyone specific questions to ask is “dishonest,” and the whole incident has given her a negative outlook on politics.
Please note that despite Muriel’s keen assessment of the practice of “planting” as dishonest, she went right the hell on and did it anyway. Guess a bit of “dishonesty” isn’t really such a big deal if it gives you a chance to maybe make it onto TV, huh, Muriel? And what a bonus! You got to moan and groan about your experience on CNN!
Madrassa-Gate, courtesy of louisprandtl
In January of 2007, rumors began circulating that Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a “madrassa”. Chain emails popped up all over teh interwebs claiming that Obama was a dirty, conniving, sneaky, card-carrying terrorist Muslim (well, same thing, right?). Yeah. Well. Wrong. Unfortunately, the “Obama iz a mooozlim!” hysteria still hasn’t died in some parts of the country, especially my part of the country. 10 bucks says someone in my building thinks the US is being run by a Muslim terrorist.
Blogosphere -Gates:
MILF-Gate, courtesy of louisprandtl
In April 2008, DKos FPer DHinMI embarrassed himself and the entire Big Orange by openly calling Hillary Clinton a MILF (Mom I’d Like to Fuck) — at least, according to him, she used to be a MILF.
But in 1992, Hillary was about as hip a potential first lady as we’d had in American since Eleanor Roosevelt, and she was better looking.
WTF happened to her?
Indeed. WTF happened. Oh yeah, and DH also saw fit to remind us about the time that jerk Bill “got a bj from a nitwitted Beverly Hills brat.” Because the blogosphere had forgotten.
“Is This Snark?”-Gate, courtesy of thatpurplestuff
In May of 2008, Alegre, whose shenanigans by then had many on MYDD completely fed up, posted a comment that proved to be a tipping point of sorts. Albeit brief, her “Is this Snark? Serious question” comment earned her a spanking of a magnitude seldom before seen on the blog (68 ratings, most of them 1’s). Those who HR’d or TR’d her were then spanked in turn by Jerome, who yanked ratings and rec privileges from all involved. This resulted in a huge swath of the blog’s Obama supporters being penalized . Some changed names, some stuck it out, others lurked or left for good. Is This Snark became a rallying “cry” and is used tongue-in-cheek to this day.
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