George W. Bush tries to go through a locked door – 9,480 articles point it out.

Barack Obama tries to go through a window – 1 article points it out.

Kudos.

(h/t Snapped Shot)

Dear Sen. Obama,

You won’t be able to use one at the debates.  Just so you know.

Luv and mush,
J~

John McCain’s lack of use of a computer has become an issue to Barack Obama but it seems it’s not because he doesn’t get it as Obama may want you to believe:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan – Ted Williams is his hero – but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

Emphasis added.  Just to make sure folks catch it.

Maybe Obama’s camp wasn’t aware of this bit of information.  But it certainly puts things in a new light.

(Via The Corner)

UPDATE: Forbes in 2000:

In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. “She’s a whiz on the keyboard, and I’m so laborious,” McCain admits.

Wow, he just doesn’t get it, does he?

The Obama Campaign has decided to make an issue of McCain’s lack of computer knowledge as if it shows something about his ability to govern:

Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said the campaign was not making an issue of the 72-year-old McCain’s age, but the time he’s spent in Washington.

“Our economy wouldn’t survive without the Internet, and cyber-security continues to represent one our most serious national security threats,” Pfeiffer said. “It’s extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn’t know how to send an e-mail.”

Sigh.

Our nation wouldn’t survive without strong foreign policy and a military that exists to help implement it, or to assist in disasters throughout the world, or support our allies, and on and on and on.

How much military experience does Barack Obama have?

Oh, wait, he THOUGHT about joining the military.  That’s gotta count for something.

Think my argument is asinine?  Imagine how asinine it would be if I were talking about his using an iPod.  Just like Obama’s doing to McCain.

I’ve covered this before here and here.  I’ll cover it again if I have to.

So in case you missed it, there’s been a big to do lately about Barack Obama’s use of the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig” when referring to the policies of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Now, did Obama mean for this to be about Palin, using code words to speak negatively of her without coming right out and saying it (see “uppity“)?  The Obama campaign and many Democrats have been using the term “lipstick” when speaking of Palin over the weekend and days leading up to Obama’s utterance.

Or is Barack Obama a victim of spin?  Certainly possible.  It’s easy to take something someone says, something fairly innocent, and turn it into an insult and feign disgust with much success (George Allen and Macaca come to mind, though certainly under different circumstances).

Or are we seeing a problem in regional dialects meaning different things to different people (again, see “uppity“)??

Ask around.  Talk to folks from all over.  Particularly in the northwest or northeast, areas that aren’t too familiar with the rural and it’s slang.  See if they’ve heard the phrase before.  If you get results like mine you’ll find they’d never heard the phrase before.  You’ll find they immedeately associate the phrase with the woman involved in the context, even if she wasn’t named.  Even if the origin of the phrase had nothing to do with women.

The dangers and joy of the English language.

UPDATE: Straight from the horse’s mouth (and, no, I am not literally trying to call Obama a “horse”):

“This is sort of silly season in politics, not that there’s a non-silly season, but it gets sillier,” Obama said. “And it’s a common expression in at least Illinois. I don’t know about New York City. I don’t know what you put lipstick on here.”

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac open up their wallets, they don’t just give change to CHANGE (har, har, I kill me):

Top Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008

1. Dodd, Christopher (D-CT) $133,900
2. Kerry, John (D-MA) $111,000
3. Obama, Barack (D-IL) $105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) $75.550

By way of Right Wing Liberal we find that Big Oil sure does like them some “hope” and “change”:

The Center for Responsive Politics took a look at the candidates campaign contributions from employees of Exxon-Mobil (companies themselves are barred from donating).  Here’s what they found (ABC via Jim Geragthy):

Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain’s $35,166.

Given that the Obama campaign has been trying to paint McCain as in the pocket of the oil companies, this doesn’t bode well for the Audacity of Hype.

Today the NYT covered McCain’s lack of computer literacy and what that means on a broader scale:

While 73 percent of American adults use the Internet (only 35 percent 65 or older), according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, it’s likely that many of them would rather have a president who can get Osama bin Laden than get online. And there is a common belief that says being president should be more a “vision” job than a “management” job, and that the clutter of a digital life can only distract from the Big Picture and Deep Thoughts a leader should be concerned with. In other words, would we really want a president “friending” from the Oval Office, scouring Wikipedia for information on Iran’s nuclear program or fielding e-mail from someone claiming to be “Nigerian general” seeking an American bank account for embezzled millions?

…

“We’re not asking for a president to answer his own e-mail,” said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley futurist who teaches at Stanford. “We’re asking for a president who understands the context of what e-mail means.”

The “user experience,” Mr. Saffo said, brings with it an implicit understanding of how the country lives, and where it might be heading. As Mr. McCain would lack this, he would also be deficient in this broader appreciation for how technology affects lives.

Mr. Saffo, if I may, if “user experience” is key to knowledge and application of something as President, I suggest you take a peek a priorites and look at Barack Obama’s military experience or lack thereof. Or perhaps his work on foreign affairs in general, which is severely lacking compared to the experience of John McCain. I think America’s standing among its friends and enemies in the world is much more important than whether or not we know what the President is doing’s based on his recent Twitterings.

See: Barack Obama Is Aware Of The Military

The Gospel According To Gerard Barker:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth – for the first time – to bring the light unto all the world.

As Politico puts it, “Surge meets Purge” at Barack Obama’s website:

The Daily News report by James Gordon Meek says: “Barack Obama’s campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop ‘surge’ in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.”

Has the situation changed?  Certainly.  But Obama came out against the surge before it even had a chance to work, an uninformed and way too quick reaction that leads to lots of “regret”.  I thought Democrats were tired of knee jerk reactions to issues facing America.  I guess I was wrong…

UPDATE: How this came to light may be the long term story, though.  McCain’s campaign used a service called Versionista to track changes to Obama’s website:

The service, which launched two months ago, allows users to track and cache changes to specific web pages up to an hourly basis, depending on the level of filtering requested, says Peter Bray, its creator in Portland, Oregon.

“I’m an avid reader of blogs, so I thought this would be a good tool for campaigns and activists,” he says. “This could be a good tool in their arsenal. ”

Bray says that he got the idea from Wikipedia, which shows people the changes made to its entries. Versionista is a subscription service and allows people to track minute, detailed changes on web sites.

Obama’s plane had to make an emergency landing in St. Louis yesterday after the plane developed difficulty with its pitch.  Thankfully they landed fine and everyone is OK.  But interesting to note is where the plane came from:

This was not Obama’s regular campaign plane, which is being overhauled. It was a loaner, having previously been used by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY.

Hmmmm…..