With that said let me contribute…:)

mw, I think you make some good points that has changed a little how I think about this. I still think McCain over-reacted, but these are the points that make me think:

1) the “old fish” comment right after. Of course, it might have been just coincidental, but it makes it harder to argue that. Let’s take a look at the whole statement:

“You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still gonna stink.”

Is there any doubt here that the fish represents McCain? Is this a common idiom (I ask honestly, I’ve never heard it but it could be)? Is it just coincidence that he chose to compare McCain to an old fish, instead of choosing some other analogy that doesn’t involve age? I think it’s hard to argue that he isn’t trying to remind people about his age with this comment, or at least his long Washington experience.

So if he’s talking about McCain with the “old fish” comment, it makes it harder to argue that it wasn’t Palin he was referring to with the “lipstick” comment.

Still, the whole thing is probably just a horrible coincidence and McCain needs to chill, which brings me to the next point:

2) If McCain said… “pot calling the kettle black” referring to Obama… he would be in big trouble. I would be just as upset with people getting all upset about it, but the truth is some democrats would run with it and feign the same outrage. Heck, we’ve already seen people saying there are “racist undertones” to certain things McCain and Palin have said that have nothing to do with race, so I shudder to think what would happen if McCain actually used the word “black” when talking about Obama, even in a common idiom.

With that out of my head, I’m perfectly happy moving on and pretending this whole thing never happened.

“Are you arguing that certain idioms are off limits in this campaign? Are you saying that Obama was obviously being offensive and it’s wrong to argue otherwise? Or are you just saying it’s politically savvy for McCain to overreact?” – ASC

Actually, yes I was making a variation of all three of those points, and one more, which is three points too many for one short post. So let me list them here for clarity

1) It is stupid for any candidate to use idioms that can be misinterpreted when involved in a campaign that includes a woman, a black, and a senior citizen. However, the Irish Roman Catholic is fair game.

2) Obama knew exactly what he was doing and saying.

3) There was indeed a potential political advantage for McCain out of this Obama gaffe.

4) The McCain campaign’s ham-handed effort to capitalize on that advantage with that stupid ad negated any possible advantage and probably created a net negative backlash.

And I agree the campaign came across as whining. They should have let the PUMA’s do the whining for them.

I have even seen on-line writers resort to the use of tags –

SARCASM> I despair for the future of the English language. /SARCASM

The Obama team did get months of mileage out of that whole “100 years of war” quote.

… which was obviously taken out of context.

Not quite the same thing … but still

” we learned that anyone voting against Clinton was sexist and anyone voting against Obama was racist.”

Um, what? It would behoove you to do your due diligence and not make grand, unsubstantiated insults about the entire electorate.

LOL, that is just deliciously ironic how CaptainUltimate does not recoginze how obviously tongue in cheek those couple of lines are in mw’s post … and is offended by it … priceless.

Whatever the case, I hate whining. I didn’t like it when Obama’s supporters acted all affronted by the New Yorker cartoon and I don’t like seeing McCain and his supporters playing the same “oh, how COULD you” game with this silly “controversy.”

It has, however, supplied all 4 of Donklephant’s most frequent contributors with something to write about. So, you know, it’s got that going for it.

Um, what? It would behoove you to do your due diligence and not make grand, unsubstantiated insults about the entire electorate.