Obama’s Disastrous Gaffe-Laden Press Conference

President-elect Barack Obama’s honeymoon abruptly ended yesterday when he insulted Fox News, Nancy Reagan and dogs at his first post-election press conference. Conservatives, who had generously given Obama the benefit of the doubt in the days after the election, immediately pounced on Obama’s ill-chosen remarks, which threaten to derail his presidency before it even begins.

Conservatives were shocked when Obama snubbed Fox News, the country's only fair and balanced network, by not calling on its reporter during the press conference. “Wisdom and judiciousness were not exactly evident,” scolded RedState, where “wisdom and judiciousness” are dispensed by the bucketful. Apparently, Obama still holds a grudge against the network, and its president Roger Ailes, for reporting that he went to a madrassa as a child, joking about assassinating him, referring to him as a socialist, attacking him for calling his grandmother a “typical white person,” calling his cigarette smoking “"a dirty little secret" and asking its viewers “Would you vote for a smoker?,” mixing him up with black former congressman Harold Ford Jr., making a joke that his name was similar to Osama Bin Laden’s and who knows what other perceived slights. Unfortunately, the Fox reporter was prevented from asking such very important questions as which cabinet post William Ayers will be appointed to and which policies from the Communist Manifesto Obama was planning to implement first.

“This childish obsession over Fox News is really beneath the dignity of the White House,” said Jammie Wearing Fool, who could certainly teach our new President a thing or two about dignity. “George W. Bush has been mercilessly pummelled by most of the media during his term but has never acted so petulantly about any media outlets.” Indeed, can you imagine President Bush petulantly snubbing journalists or news organizations the way Obama did because he is angry at their reporting? Apparently, Obama is already laying the groundwork for his secret plan to repeal the First Amendment.

Ignoring Fox News was bad enough, but then Obama went out of his way to insult Nancy Reagan, accusing her of holding séances in the White House. When he learned that Reagan did not hold séances in the White House but merely consulted with astrologers and arranged the White House schedule based on favorable alignments of the planets, Obama called Reagan to apologize for his tasteless joke. That wasn’t enough for many outraged conservatives who refused to accept his “weak apology.” “He's actually more immature than many of us suspected and feared,” said Dan Riehl, who took the high road, as usual, and made a very funny but mature joke about Obama’s dead grandmother. Stop the ACLU thought Obama’s joke displayed a lack of “professionalism” and called him a “jerk,” as one professional to another.

Obama had apparently mixed up Reagan with Mary Todd Lincoln who did hold séances in the White House, which is just as bad since she was the wife of the beloved first Republican President and unable to defend herself because she is no longer living. Is this the kind of bipartisanship we can expect from President Obama? What deceased wives of Republican Presidents will he insult next? President-elect Obama owes Mrs. Lincoln an apology even if he has to hold a séance to make it properly.

But the worst gaffe Obama made at his disastrous press conference was when he referred to mixed-breed dogs (or “differently bred” dogs, as they prefer to be called) using the dogist term “mutts.” “Mutt” is a deeply offensive word to working-class dogs and their owners. Although Obama tried to recover and hastily added the words, “like me,” the damage was already done. “This guy has a real complex about himself, a megalomania that especially manifests when he speaks of others,” wrote MacRanger at Macsmind, whose biracial friend was "outraged." I imagine we will be hearing a lot from MacRanger's outraged biracial friend in the coming years whenever the issue of race comes up. Jules Crittenden compared Obama’s use of the word “mutt” to the time dog-torturing President Lyndon Johnson showed the press his scar. Paterico was reminded of the time Obama callously insulted pigs. Is no mammal safe from Obama’s sharp tongue?

Differently bred dogs are tired of being subjected to these kinds of cheap cur slurs, just as they resent the snotty attitudes of elitist, pedigreed show dogs who look down on them as canines who bitterly cling to their bones and chew toys. “Mutt,” which some particularly sensitive dog-owners refer to as the “M-word,” is a derogatory term that was first coined in 1906 and is short for “muttonhead,” which means a “stupid person.” It is bad enough when "mutt" is used to refer to a person, but when hurled at a dog, which cannot defend itself, it is an extremely offensive slur. It took years for dog-rights activists to get people to use the term "mongrel," until that term was scrapped in favor of the more politically correct designations “mixed-breed” and “differently bred.” Some progressive groups believe that all breed distinctions should be avoided and are trying to popularize the term "Dog-American" to refer to all dogs, from shih tzus to cockapoos, regardless of breed.

Before Obama used this unfortunate term, Muttgate was already threatening to splinter his fragile coalition and derail the Obama presidency. Obama’s promise to buy his daughters a puppy after the election has cost Obama quite a bit of support. PETA would no doubt prefer that Obama not enslave any animals at all, or at the very least save one from death row. Little girls who wanted their daddies to give them ponies supported Hillary in the primaries and refused to support Obama in the general election when their fathers told them that even Obama’s girls were not getting a pony so they should just shut up about it. Cat lovers, who are mostly independent voters, held out hope until the last minute that Obama would signal that he was going to get his girls a cat. Although many of them ended up voting for Obama, they are sure to have their claws out after his flagrant disregard of felines at the press conference. Meanwhile, the powerful ferret lobby, which single-handedly destroyed the presidential aspirations of Rudy Giuliani (if you don’t count Giuliani himself), was taking a wait-and-see approach to Obama, but they are probably already marshalling their musky, bad-tempered forces after yesterday’s news conference. Obama should be particularly wary of this interest group since ferret owners are notorious for being very sick and angry people.

Worst of all, Obama’s stunning announcement that he was seeking a “hypoallergenic” dog for his daughters finally confirmed the fears of many conservatives, such as Focus on the Family, that Obama is just like Hitler, who also excited crowds and was similarly elevated to power through the democratic process before he became a ruthless dictator. "Hypoallergenic" is, of course, a codeword for dogs that are pure breeds, which are dogs that have been bred according to the very same kind of evil eugenics practiced by the Nazis.

No matter what breed of dog or other pet Obama’s family ends up getting, Obama is sure to disillusion a large part of his constituency and scuttle any chance his administration has of getting anything done. It is a tragedy that a presidency that had so much promise and potential, which patriotic conservatives who love their country really were pulling for, should go down in flames so soon.

Carnivals: Carnival of Cats, Puppy in Training, Carnival of the Liberals, Everything Worth Reading

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