Kraniak_the_Maniak's Blog

Republican Senator Richard Shelby has been highly critical of the American Automakers.  The last few weeks he has called them dinosaurs, says giving them money is like pouring it into a rat hole and that he hopes the auto companies never get any help.

Shelby's position may not merely be that of a fiscal conservative. His home state of Alabama has provided millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to lure Honda, Hyundai, and Mercedes-Benz to build huge plants there.

It makes you wonder what might be motivating this politician to prevent the Big Three from obtaining a loan with interest that it must pay back. 

A website stemming from Detroit called “BOYCOTTALABAMANOW.COM” has been developed by a grassroots group that refers to itself as true Americans who say they've had enough with uninformed politicians who are not helping the domestic auto industry, in this case Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama.  

I don't subscribe to boycotting Alabama per se, but I find information on this site very interesting.  We actually produced a news story for television about the web site in Detroit, and as always we let our viewers decide. 

Here's what stands out to me:  Read some of Senator Shelby's statements and the published response from the web site.

Senator Shelby's Statement

Meet the press Nov. 19th, 2008 They are not building the right products

RESPONSE

The Big Three do build the right products. Many 2009 domestic models have received many awards. In 2008, the Chevy Malibu was named North American Car of the Year, and the Cadillac CTS was Motor Trend’s 2008 Car of the Year. In 2007, the Saturn Aura and Chevy Silverado won North American Car and Truck of the year. Those awards are given and judged by automotive journalists.

Senator Shelby's Statement

The domestic companies are not innovative

RESPONSE

It is clear that Senator Shelby has not visited any of the Big Three headquarters or their world class manufacturing facilities. The 2008 Harbour report states the following:

This year’s addition of the Harbour Report suggests that the gap between domestic and foreign automakers in terms of assembly plant efficiency has narrowed significantly as measured by the number of hours it takes to build a vehicle. The big surprise was at the top of the charts, where Chrysler tied Toyota for the number one spot in manufacturing productivity, consisting of assembly, stamping and engine and transmission; all in all both manufacturers take 30.37 hours to build a vehicle from start to finish. The most efficient plant in North America is the Toledo Supplier Park plant, which takes 13.57 hours to crank out a Wrangler. Second place was Oshawa (Canada) Plant No.1, which takes 15.18 hours to assemble an Impala.

Note to Senator Shelby: You don’t understand that this type of efficiency doesn’t happen by not being innovative. Seek the facts before you speak!

Senator Shelby's Statement

The American car companies are dinosaurs

RESPONSE

Not only are they not dinosaurs, they are world class competitive companies that sell over 50% of all cars purchased in the world. Does that sound like a dinosaur?

Senator Shelby's Statement

I don’t believe the money will make them survive

RESPONSE

To those reading this, please keep in mind that Senator Shelby voted against the loan to Chrysler in 1980 yet that loan was paid back with interest to the government. From that loan, Chrysler continues to be in business some 28 years later having provided thousands of direct jobs and many more indirect jobs while at the same time giving both state and federal government billions of dollars in taxes.

Senator Shelby's Statement

It is not a national problem

RESPONSE

It is in fact a national problem. If the Big Three go out of business, it has been estimated that the U.S. will lose 2 to 3 million jobs coast to coast. They will go from taxpaying workers to unemployed workers seeking unemployment compensation. Every state as well as the federal government will lose tax revenue. Senator Shelby states that the number of jobs lost is inaccurate but does not state what he thinks the amount is.

Senator Shelby's Statement

File chapter 11 and get rid of management

RESPONSE

If any of the Big Three file chapter 11, it is the end for that company. Senator Shelby seems to think that people will continue to purchase cars that they may not be able to get serviced at a dealer. But there will be no dealers to provide service. Sales will come to an immediate halt and Chapter 7 will be the next step.

Senator Shelby's Statement

Bloomberg Nov. 19th, 2008 The problem was not caused by financial situation

RESPONSE

The problem WAS and is in fact caused by the financial situation. We are now told that we have officially been in a recession since late 2007. All the members of congress had to do was to call any hard working family and ask them how things were going. We would have advised congress that the economy was in trouble and we are concerned. Combine that with the housing crisis, major loss of housing value, and the banking crisis which congress failed to correct. The U.S. auto industry (including transplants) have seen the yearly sales figures drop from about 17 million units to less than 11 million units. In November of 2008, Toyota sales were down almost 34% t 4% more than Ford. Prius sales were down almost 50%. How could the best mileage car sales down 50%? The answer is easy; No credit, no jobs and a teetering economy. The fact is that people are scared to make any big purchase due to the financial situation, the recession and the drying up of available credit. The auto companies had nothing to do with this crisis.

Senator Shelby's Statement

The Big Three hemorrhage billions of dollars even in the best of times

RESPONSE

No they haven’t. For many years the Big Three had been very profitable. Check your facts Mr. Senator.

Senator Shelby's Statement

The corporate model is not working

RESPONSE

If the corporate model is not working then the Big Three would have been out of business a long time ago. These are difficult times and nobody including the senator saw what was about to happen to the U.S. economy.

Senator Shelby's Statement

It is not a national security problem

RESPONSE

It is a national security problem. We only need to go back to World War Two and look at what the domestic auto industry did for the arsenal of democracy. They collectively shut down production of cars from 1942 until 1946 to support the war against Japan and Germany. It is clear that without their support, we would have lost the war and be speaking either German or Japanese today. Does anyone think that Toyota or Mercedes will open up their U.S. plant for a war effort? Unlikely!

Senator Shelby's Statement

MSNBC Nov. 19th, 2008 The domestic auto industry is paying people too much.

RESPONSE

The UAW worker is paid about $3 per hour more than those people who work for the transplants in the U.S. Yes, there are legacy costs which have been addressed and have been re-negotiated by the UAW and have brought the total compensation for a UAW hourly worker close to those who work in non-union assembly plants. But keep in mind, as an example, the median property tax in Alabama is one quarter of that than in the state of Michigan so in general the cost of living in the south is much less than the mid-west or other parts of the country. When you factor in the lower cost of living for the south, the disposable income for a UAW worker in the mid-west or north-east is probably less than that for a non UAW worker in Alabama.

Senator Shelby's Statement

The GM, Ford and Chrysler business model won’t work, it never worked.

RESPONSE

If what Senator Shelby states is correct that the business model has never worked then General Motors and Ford would not have been in business for over 100 years and Chrysler would not have been in business for over 83 years. The model has made them billions of dollars over many of those years. The model has worked and is working. The economy and the government are the problem.

Senator Shelby's Statement

Fox News Nov. 19th, 2008 This is putting money into a rat hole

RESPONSE

There are millions of people who would take Senator Shelby to task on this including those who he failed to support in the 1980 Chrysler loan guarantee. The government was paid back with interest even though he did not support the initiative. The hard working people of the domestic auto industry are ashamed of the senator for thinking of them as being part of a rat hole. Many would suggest that congress is a rat hole; stuff money in, get nothing out.

Senator Shelby's Statement

I hope we will never give the auto companies help

RESPONSE

Senator Shelby better hope that smarter people than him will prevail because if the Big Three fail, the nation will be in a depression like it hasn’t seen in 89 years.

Senator Shelby's Statement

The Big Three leaders must consider working for $1.00 per year or be removed. He stated in the hearing that because the domestic car companies were loosing billions of dollars, the leaders should consider working for $1 per year which, by the way, they have now offered.

RESPONSE

If the senator uses that logic, then it is he who should work for $1.00 per year since the total debt of the U.S. government is now over ten trillion dollars. But many who support this website agree that $1.00 per year might be too much to pay the senator.

For fiscal year 2008, the government spent $412 billion on interest payments to the holders of the national debt. Do you think your representatives are doing their job?

Again -- read more on BOYCOTTALABAMANOW.COM or send Senator Shelby a note:

senator@shelby.senate.gov
ph: 202-224-5744

The banks and Wall Street get 700 billion, with another 800 billion on the way.  The state governors are about to ask for a 'temporary countercycling fund" to the tune of 180 billion.  Countercycling?  You're kidding right?  So what's so damn hard about giving American automakers a measly 30-billion dollar bridge loan?  I tell you what's so hard, the fact that the BIG THREE  have largely been mismanaged since the 1970's.

Look, I live in metro Detroit.  Selfishly I would love to see a loan happen to help stave off more foreclosures and lackluster retail sales.  Michigan's economy has hit my neighborhood pretty hard.  My next door neighbor is an engineer with GM, has six kids, two in college.  He still has his job, but for how long?  My neighbor across the street is a retired automotive engineer, she worries about her health care and how she will pay for everyday life for the rest of her life.  Down the street: a police officer forced into early retirement because of budget cuts, two school teachers who continue to take pay cuts year after year, a young Englishman who came to America to help design cars wondering if his stay in America will soon come to an end, a laid-off advertising executive, a free lance photographer who now waits too long for the phone to ring, an unemployed mortgage broker and on and on and on.

We know about Michigan's bad economy.  But here's why I understand why the BIG THREE deserves to fail.

• Do you trust your auto dealer?  Where did the phrase "as trustworthy as a used car salesman" come from?  Bad customer service and the rip-off factor in this industry are extreme.  High pressure sales people selling inferior products for decades has taken it's toll.  These days the cars are better, but the damage is done

• Selling SUV"s while the world buys fuel economy vehicles.

• Giving executives huge bonuses while the company loses market share and profitability, mainly because of decisions made by the same executives.

• Paying Union Workers to sit idle in a jobs bank where no one does any work.

• Do you trust your mechanic, your oil change place?  There is something wrong with the auto-related culture.  Consistently too slimy.

• Corporate culture that breeds out originality and promotes tow the-line thinking.  What happened to American ingenuity.  Are you familiar with Tucker?

There are other factors that have lead to the demise of the American Auto Industry.  Health Care costs and unfair trade policies to name a few.  Neither of these problems will get solved with a bridge loan.  Give them the loan you will, oh brilliant politicians on Capitol Hill.  We know you cannot pass up the opportunity to get your TV time and make a speech about how you are working for the average voter.

Somebody needs to get to work solving some of the real problems facing this industry and this country.  At least the auto companies make a product, not just trade paper or make bets with their bookies on Wall Street.  That's another blog.

You can't just keep spending taxpayer money on treating symptoms, eventually the patient, in this case the United States of America as we know it, will die from the disease.

For now pass the 30-billion dollar cold medicine, I want my neighborhood to stay together for a little while longer. 

Let me get this straight.  It's OK to fund companies that make no products, but let companies that actually produce something fall to the wayside.

All right, I get the free market premise and how the stock market is supposed to provide monies for real companies to produce something.  But this is not what's been happening on Wall Street.

Let's talk about hedge funds and credit default swaps.  It's essentially betting on a company's demise, insuring them if you will, then collecting money when they fail. It's like taking out a policy on someone you think is going to die, then collecting on it when they do.  Why the hell do you have the right to do that? And -- It's not just that, you sell your bet to someone else. They pay you a hefty annual fee, that becomes your profit and then when the company dies, you simply forward the settlement to them. 

Bottom line: No Product is made, no work is created -- just money changing hands. 

The mortgage issue speaks for itself -- banks and companies offering all kinds of deals to people who cannot afford homes.  Then the same banks create their stock portfolios based on these false assets. Then they jack up the interest rates on the suckers who can't pay their loans.  Sound like loan sharking?

And what about the people who took out a loan they knew they couldn't afford.  What happened to personal responsibility?  We are not entitled to owning a home, you must earn it.  Make tough decisions.  Scrimp.  Save.  Take stay at home vacations.  Pack a lunch instead of dining out etc. 

So now the rest of us will bail out Wall Street and the mortgage industry and the pseudo home owners who over-extended, but NOT THE AUTO INDUSTRY -- WHY?

I agree the BIG THREE have been completely mismanaged, owned politicians to get their ways on mileage standards, shipped jobs to Mexico or overseas and quite frankly made inferior products.  They failed to recognize a changing market place.

But here's the deal:  They actually make something.  They create something.  The products are better than they have been been since the heyday of the American Auto Industry.  They also are not competing on a level playing field with foreign auto makers.  Try selling an American car in Japan and see what tariff's do to your price tag, let alone lack of distribution channels.  It's not fair, however you would think the Japanese consumer might gripe, but they don't. At least not in headline fashion.

I believe in a free market society, but losing more manufacturing jobs will likely have devastating consequences.  You can only trade product for paper for so long. At some point you have to make something.  What happens, God forbid, if we have to go to full scale war and we cannot make the supplies needed to fight the battles. 

What's another 25-billion in the scheme of things?  A few months in Iraq? Yes - there needs to be some serious accountability placed on the BIG THREE, they cannot continue doing business as usual.  Use Chapter 11 guidelines to get rid of some execs without actually having the company be in bankruptcy.  Who would buy a car from a company in bankruptcy - it won't work.

One of the big problems is the legacy health care costs.  OK -- so maybe a long term bail-out for all businesses in this country is a national health care system.  We may as well get something back for our taxes and this would lower the cost of doing business for manufacturers and everybody else.  Japan does it.

You can have some socialistic principals in place to support a free market, it's the only way to deal with a global economy.  We all agree that there are certain inalienable rights, why not make health one of them.  Public health care does not have to mean that you eliminate choice for service.  OK - lay into me Fox fans -- I used the word Socialism in conjunction with Free Market.

What are you so afraid of?  We need to consider all solutions.  Our country's very future is at stake.  I know my neighbors in Detroit, who work hard, at least as hard as any Wall Street banker, are looking for answers.

What's yours?  SOUND OFF AND BE HEARD

Let there be no doubt that history was made this November.  Change is coming.

If you're a McCain supporter, you are probably hurting a bit right now.  If you're in the Obama camp, you are on cloud nine.

Hear me everyone -- it's time to come together.  Our country is at critical juncture in its history.  For me, I am inspired by so many people heading to the polls to vote.  I want so much for America to succeed.  It's time for all of us to get involved.

You got out to vote, now keep doing it.  Get informed.  Get active.  Make a difference.

No matter what color you are -- red or blue, this is the time to work together.

I for one plan on continuing to find truth in politics.  That is my job.  I also plan to raise my kids, provide them an education, teach them the importance of "we the people."  I plan to love my wife and cherish her every day.  I will make a difference -- every day.

We have a new President  to work with.  Let's not waste the next four years.  What say you?

What will do today to make a difference tomorrow? Find your voice, your passion and join me in the continuing adventure that is free society. 

It's not Love America or Leave it.  It's Love America and Live the Dream.

Do you know why you're choosing one presidential candidate over another?  Are you still undecided?  What are you waiting for? 

Here's an idea to help you make a decision on which candidate to vote for next Tuesday.  Or if you've made up your mind, find out if your vote matches where you stand on the issues.

Check out the Candidate Matchmaker.  It's a 20 question quiz on the issues that compares your answers to the candidates answers.  The idea is to find out who more closely matches your viewpoints. 

To take the quiz, click here  (after you're done, come back to my blog and tell me what you think.)

(here are the questions below if you want a preview.  The way it works is you decide if you are strongly in favor of --- or strongly oppose --- or something in between.)

Abortion is a woman's right
Require companies to hire more women & minorities
Sexual orientation protected by civil rights laws
Teach family values in public schools
Death penalty Mandatory
Three Strikes sentencing laws Absolute right to gun ownership
More federal funding for health coverage
Privatize Social Security
Parents choose schools via vouchers
Replace coal & oil with alternatives
Drug use is immoral: enforce laws against it
Allow churches to provide welfare services
Make taxes more progressive
Illegal immigrants earn citizenship
Support & expand free trade
More spending on armed forces
Stricter limits on political campaign funds
The Patriot Act harms civil liberties
Replace US troops with UN in Iraq

Take the real quiz, click here 

I'll tell what happened when I took the quiz, it blew my mind.  I will not vote for the candidate who best matched my answer set, but I did change to another candidate based on going deeper into the issues.  The quiz prompted me to take a closer look at my own values and the candidates.  It made me prioritize which ideas matter most to me and in the end ponder who I think will better represent me on Pennsylvania Avenue come January.

The quiz is not perfect, but it definitely helped me to focus on the issues. After all, that's really what this election should be about.   Take the quiz, see what it does for you. Then tell me what you think, and let the debate continue in this blog.  The time is now.

Who is Joe the Plumber?
  
He is Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man looking to buy a plumbing
business. 

McCain used Joe to personalize his economic message of "spreading the
wealth" in Wednesday night's third and final presidential debate.

Joe Six Pack out, Joe the Plumber in.

McCain and Obama referenced the man no less than 20 times.

I hope Joe gets a lot of business out of the deal, but here's what I liked about the third debate:

The duo spoke much more candidly about the issues.  They both pointed out differences in their plans in plain, simple terms.

We saw some insight into their personalities when moderator Bob Schieffer asked them about the negative campaigning.  I think Obama got the better of this exchange.  He handled the William Ayers question very well, and that may have taken some starch out of Palin's "pallin around with terrorists" banter.

McCain's best line might have been "if you wanted to run against George Bush you should have done it 4 years ago, I am not George Bush."

McCain did a great job of establishing the premise of Obama spending more money and creating government mandates for health care and education.  This strategy should put a charge into the Republican base.

Obama continued to tie McCain to Bush's economic policies and the notion of we can't afford 8 more years.

Why I think Joe the Plumber won is that both candidates clearly spelled out their plans on health care, energy, the economy and education.  The average American who watched last night's debate should have been able to hear the differences -- straight up.  The format was by far the best of the three presidential debates and the lone vice-presidential debate.

The real Joe the Plumber says he is leaning toward McCain, but is still undecided.  McCain trails in most polls, the question is did he do enough to sway more voters last night?  I know this much, it was easier to tell the difference on where the candidates stand on the issues after this debate.  Even with perhaps too much time being spent on the negative campaign ads, the exchanges offered a glimpse of character.

McCain and Obama both did what they had to do: McCain comes out swinging, Obama bobs, weaves and counter punches.

19 days left.  No clear winner.  Who do you think won the debate? Who will win in November?

Let me know.

Round 2.  When is the fight going to start?  Pardon the cliche boxing analogy, but I think I might get bored if I write this blog straight.

Some town hall.  The citizens who allegedly had ring side streets saw a lot of bobbing, weaving and dancing -- but no punches thrown.

The format was hardly interactive.  Both candidates went into their spin zones.

I thought McCain was supposed to go on the attack.  What happened?  Obama can afford to play it cool, he's ahead in most polls.

What seems to be dominating the debates is the philosophy of not making mistakes.  How are voters supposed to learn about these guys if we don't get to see some real discourse.  With that said - here's a few highlights -- snipped straight to the point.

The best exchange:

MCCAIN: You know, nailing down Senator Obama's various tax proposals is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. There's been five or six of them. And if you wait long enough, there will probably be another one. But he wants to raise taxes. My friends, the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover.

OBAMA: Senator McCain, I think, you know, the Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one. So let's be clear about my tax plan and Senator McCain's, because we're not going to be able to deal with entitlements unless we understand the revenues coming in. I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of Americans -- 95 percent

Something different from previous debates:

BROKAW: Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?

MCCAIN: I think it's a responsibility in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member. And with the plan that -- that I have, that will do that. But government mandates I'm always a little nervous about.

OBAMA: Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for or my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in a hospital room arguing with insurance companies, because they're saying that this may be a preexisting condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.

BROKAW: see if we can establish tonight the Obama doctrine and the McCain doctrine for the use of United States combat forces in situations where there's a humanitarian crisis but it does not affect our national security.

OBAMA: Well, we may not always have national security issues at stake, but we have moral issues stake. I mean, if -- if -- if we could have intervened effectively in the Holocaust, who among us would say that we had a moral obligation not to go in?

BROKAW: Senator McCain, the McCain doctrine, if you will.

MCCAIN:  The United States of America, Tom, is the greatest force for good, as I said. And we must do whatever we can to prevent genocide, whatever we can to prevent these terrible calamities that we have said never again. But it also has to be tempered with our ability to beneficially affect the situation. That requires a cool hand at the tiller.

The rest we've heard.  Back to my prize fight analogy, right now Obama is leading in key states and looks like he'll get the electoral math he needs to win the election.  That kind of makes him the current heavyweight champion.  If you want his title belt -- you need to knock his block off.  The champ retains the title in a draw.  So far each debate has looked like a sparring match.

McCain has one more chance next week.  He better find a hook or two -- or forget about it.

Throw some punches at me, I want to know what you think.

The much anticipated debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin was far more interesting than Obama vs. McCain 1.

Both candidates spoke plainly.
Both candidates scored points.

She passed a big test with flying colors.
He jabbed away at McCain instead of her.

Here's what stands out to me:

Biden continued with the strategy of linking McCain-Palin to Bush.
She countered with -- there you again Joe focusing on the past instead of the future.

She played the maverick team card over and over again.
He says McCain is hardly a maverick with his votes on health care, taxes and other issues.

She thinks the Veep should have more legislative power.
He says that is dangerous, offering Dick Cheney as an example.

Here's the bottom line:

No one lost this debate.  Really that's all that can ever happen, not so much a winner, but someone who makes a huge mistake and loses.

Mz. Palin seemed much more comfortable in this situation than in recent weeks.  Biden was well-spoken and never attacked her, just McCain.

Did they sway any voters?  Certainly not the decided, maybe a few undecided.

You tell me.

McCain vs Obama round one.

Ding Ding.  They both jabbed, but no serious punches have landed yet.


First --- Dealing with the financial crisis.  In my mind neither candidate convinced me that they can focus on the issue of solving the problem without mixing in their own political agenda.  No trust here.  They danced too much.

The rest of the debate was about focused on foreign policy, as promised.

On Iraq:

Obama did a good job at linking McCain to Bush and the decision of going to war in the first place.  Obama says we should be focusing more on Afghanistan.

McCain defended the surge of '07 -- a plan he helped to put together -- and says Obama was against the surge, which has quelled some of the sectarian violence.

Obama wants to end the war sooner than McCain.  McCain says any timetable is foolish.

On Afghanistan

Obama wants more troops there, says that's where Al Qaeda is, and that's where the central focus on the war on terror should have been in the first place and should remain.

McCain agrees that more troops are needed but says he believes the War in Iraq is the central focus of the war on terror.

On Iran

Both men consider it a threat and a rogue state.  The defining difference, McCain says he will not meet with any leader like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions.  Obama offers a how can you set conditions without first talking.  He says you can talk without making agreements.  THIS MAY BE THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE OF THEIR FOREIGN POLICY IDEOLOGIES.  BIG DIFFERENCE HERE.

On Russia

They agree that Russia is fueled by petrol dollars and that Putin is feeling strong.  They both agree that Russia was too aggressive with Georgia.  They differ on how they would handle the situation. 

Obama wants UN Peacekeepers to head off confrontations and says being less dependent on foreign oil will help our country with security and to deal with countries like Russia. 

McCain says he looks into Putin's eyes and sees the KGB.
He wants to deal more harshly with Russia and also agrees that we must become less dependent on foreign oil.

Are we safer after 911?

Both men say yes, but much work to do.

Did anybody win?  In terms of swaying voters, I don't think so.  McCain is a better debater than he is a speech maker.  Although enough of the "miss congeniality" comments.

Obama seemed confident.  Foreign policy seems like his weak suit.  He needs to really hit harder on Iraq.  McCain out flanked him there.  Look for Obama to rebound on the issue of Iraq when he works into economic and dedication of resource arguments as opposed to war tactics.

I think Obama's wanting to talk to rogue nation leaders may win him votes, naive or not --- it seems more optimistic and less tied to Bush and the Cold War era.  McCain seems outdated in this area, and the Kissinger references do not mean as much today.

I'd call it a draw.  As our current president George Bush says -- no one wins debates -- but you can lose one.  No one lost here tonight.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I have told this joke before. Three couples are having breakfast and the first man says to his wife -- "can you pass the sugar, sugar?" Not to be outdone the second man says to his wife " can you pass the honey, honey?" Now the third man knows he is going to get in trouble and be sleeping on the couch for a week unless he says something endearing and clever. He thinks and he thinks and he finally comes up with "can you pass the bacon, pig?!"

You can easily inter-place wife with husband in this joke or anyone of race, sex, or creed. The truth is the joke is usually told by a man, about a woman.
Whether you think it's funny or offensive is not the point. The point is if you're running for president, you don't tell that joke.

Barack Obama saying "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" - was not a smart move, even if the intended target was not GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin.

Most everyone assumes the target was Palin.

Obama delivered the line while campaigning in Lebanon, Va., tearing into his rivals for not representing real change.

"You know, you can put lipstick on a pig," Obama said, "but it's still a pig." He added, "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change.' It's still gonna stink after eight years."

The second part of the statement is getting little play. You could argue agism on the "old" part of "old fish."  That's another blog for another day.

Obama has already been accused of being a sexist. A few months back he failed to answer a female reporter's question in Detroit and then he called her "sweetie." The incident became the lead story in her newscast. She was offended more by the lack of an answer than the "sweetie" comment, but the two together made her believe at the time that he did not take her seriously.

The "lipstick on a pig" comment is an old cliche. It can be applied to many issues. When you're running against Palin, you cannot go there. This makes the Pubs pick of Palin seem that much more brilliant. She can attack, but attacking her can incur serious unintended reprisals. The issue of sexism is in play here. Obama has to walk a mine field now and really think before he speaks. Fair or not, this is the game.

Keep that up Mr. Obama and you can enjoy watching the inauguration from a pancake house in Illinois asking someone to pass the syrup please. 

Oh now he gets it.

Watch video of "lipstick" comment as it was delivered below.