Obama mocks McCain: 'I don't know where he was standing'

August 05, 2008
Categories: Barack Obama

Obama mocks McCain: 'I don't know where he was standing'

Barack Obama mocked John McCain's call to "drill here and drill now" this morning in eastern Ohio.

"'I want to drill here, I want to drill now.' -- I don’t know where he was standing," Obama laughingly told a Youngstown, OH crowd. "I mean, I think he was in a building somewhere."

(http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/mccain-we-have.html">McCain made his call yesterday at the National Label Company in Lafayette Hill, PA.)

Obama criticized McCain's plan as ineffectual in lowering prices in the short term, and offered his own version of energy read meat: Taking $1,000 per person tax rebates from the oil companies -- which drew a loud cheer -- and a dramatic goal: "In ten years, we will eliminate the need for oil from the entire Middle East and Venezuela."


Prepared remarks in Youngstown after the jump.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Obama_mocks_McCain_I_dont_know_where_he_was_standing.html#comments">Continue reading Obama mocks McCain: 'I don't know where he was standing'


By Ben Smith 10:15 AM

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/Obama_mocks_McCain_I_dont_know_where_he_was_standing.html#comments">Link

that campaign off the most. I like it!

I want Obama to defend himself and go after McCain, but the cutesy mockery really does NOT help, IMO. Especially when it's this much of a stretch. It comes across as supercilious and condescending, and as well as it plays with the true believers, it will not play well with independents.

Obama makes one joke and it's called condescending.

Why don't people just climb into Obama's mouth already if they're so "concerned" about what's coming out?

Lighten up. It was just a little light-hearted mockery -- really not that big of a deal.

anything that paints the other guy as a fool is great. we've been letting republicans have a field day for decades and it's high time we get them a dose of their own medicine.

they laughed at gore for sighing and wearing earth tones, for pete's sake, and that actually worked. this is american politics. it doesn't have to be a shakespearean putdown. if it works in an elementary schoolyard, it'll work in presidential politics.

if so i'd like to see it...

have pointed out, when we say anything favorable about Obama, we might as well be invisible, but if we point out anything he's done that we thought was a mistake, suddenly all the Clinton-hating, party-unity-hating disruptors come out of the woodwork and accuse us of never posting anything positive.

I'm not going to waste time posting links again. Look for yourself. I've probably posted at least as many topics about news articles favorable for Obama (and his wife, and his campaign manager) as anyone else here this summer.

But God forbid I point out if a joke he makes is likely to backfire.

I don't want him to make mistakes. I thought that silly campaign logo copying the presidential seal was a mistake, and I said so, and I was very glad to see the campaign yank it.

I'm not going to apologize for saying this joke Obama made today didn't work, for the reasons I explained.

try to claim you don't.

that were favorable toward Obama and his wife.

I first worked for a Democratic campaign forty years ago, and I've always voted for the Democratic nominee and I've said I'll vote for Obama, though he wasn't my choice. If that's your idea of a "funny kind of Dem" you have serious problems.

I do not worship him blindly. That isn't required of Democrats. Constructive criticism is allowed here, and pointing out when mockery doesn't work is constructive criticism.

If you really want party unity, you'll stop this foolish bullying and stop trying to drive away any Dems who don't worship Obama blindly.

This thread, for instance. You are critical of how Obama is mocking McCain. How lame is that?
Enjoy it for what it is and move on. It's a done deal; your negativeness won't be changing a thing.
I have no problem with criticism on issues; that's what we're here for. But you are over the top, often.
It does make me question your motives. And obviously, I'm not the only person who's noticed. Maybe you need to work on your approach.

:thumbsup:

He posts a lot of good/important articles that have slipped through the cracks too.

:)




GOBAMA!

Yeah, it does seem to work.

Turnabout is fair play.

"MOCKING AN ELDER STATESMAN?!?!?! THIS ISN'T CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!!! HOW DARE HE OBAMA SHOULD LICK MCCAIN'S BOOTS IN APOLOGY!!!!!"

And you can bet McCain's camp is already preparing a "Apparently Senator Obama is resorting to petty insults" press release.

Fuck 'em.

It's equivalent to McCain taking one of Obama's speeches referring to "the time" and laughingly asking if he meant the exact time in minutes and seconds. Dumb like that.

Obama should know better.

who turned out to see Obama in Germany, and dumb enough to compare him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

No, Obama shouldn't make a habit out of this. It's our job to run McCain down and make fun of him, not his.

But you need a leavening of humor--otherwise you'll crack up.

did he mean 10:47? Is it too late now?" That would be a real laff riot, huh?

There's mockery that works and mockery that doesn't, and this didn't.

a boxer can't just wait for an opening to deliver the perfect ko punch.
a batter can't wait for that home run ball in the middle of the strike zone.

ya gotta keep up the little attacks, focus attention on MCCAIN'S image, keep them on the defensive. keep everyone thinking that mccain as president is laughable. remind them he's a fool.

knockout punches are great but you need 10 jabs for every big swing.

...was the height of sophisticated, cutting satire.

It was funny. Maybe you should head over to the store and buy a sense of humor.

- as

It defuses their argument when you shed light on it.

This old geezer makes no sense at all.

I think it's perfect.

It also shows how little Barack is bothered by insults. He needs to roll with the punches and not let the RNC bother him. He needs to reassure us that he can take it.

It's just like brushing off Hillary's insults off his shoulder with a smile.

The greater statesman can handle the jabs with a smile. The lesser one either folds up and chokes or hurls bumper sticker insults, and becomes immobilized. It goes directly to the "ready for the job" argument.

sake. Not because it's sound energy policy.

So it contrasts the absurdity of McCain's position with the absurdity of drilling "right here and now."

I get it even if high plains doesn't. And I think it's a salient humerus observation by Obama, lambasting McCain's "drill anywhere" policy promise.

Of course I also thought the New Yorker cover was hilarious. And for similar reasons. So I wonder what that says about my politics and about my sense of humor?

He needs to practice jabbing back in a humorous way. He needs to make his huge audiences laugh at McSnicker uproariously, until he McSplodes.

Obama looks good when he takes those chuckling shots, and they get air time. Old Grumpy McCain is very reactive. Obama needs to bump McCain off his comfortable spot taking shots at Obama, and make the old geezer play defense.

As in basketball, you make your opponent play defense, and you bump him off his favorite shooting spots.