Hotline After Dark -- Muddy Waters?

There was a lot of reaction to Barack Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment.

Mike Huckabee: "It's an old expression, and I'm going to have to cut Obama some slack on that one. I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin. He did reference her -- if you take the two soundbites together, it may sound like it. But I've been a guy at the podium many times, and you say something that's maybe a part of an old joke and then somebody ties it in. So I'm going to have to cut him slack" ("Hannity & Colmes," FNC, 9/9).

Time's Halperin: "I think this is the press just absolutely playing into the [John] McCain campaign's crocodile tears. ... They knew exactly what he was saying. It's an expression. And this is a victory for the McCain campaign in the sense that every day they can make this a pig fight in the mud. It's good for them because it's reducing Barack Obama's message even more. But I think this is a low point in the day and one of the low days of our collective coverage of this campaign. To spend even a minute on this expression, I think, is amazing and outrageous" ("AC 360,"CNN, 9/9).

MSNBC's Olbermann, on the McCain camp: "They're demanding an apology to Governor Palin, even though McCain said this about half a dozen times in his campaign, referring to things on the Democratic side. Do we have this idea of taking that theme of sexism that emerged in the Democratic primary and turning it around to a Republican advantage? Is that a Rovian tactic?"

MSNBC's Maddow, in response: "I think it's good offense to anticipate what your opponents will do, and to have already cast in mind how you're going to caricature it and throw it back. ... What we think of as the classic Rovian tactic is taking the thing on which your candidate is weakest and having them campaign on that as if it's their strength" ("Countdown," 9/9).

Karl Rove, asked if Obama should take the statement back: "If I were him, I would. Look, he's getting in a bad place in his campaign, and when you get nervous and when you get sort of under pressure and you start to lose it, this is the kind of stuff you start to say. The new polls that are out indicate that Senator McCain is making some real ground, has made some real ground on the idea of creating his own persona. ... So he's winning this battle of trying to create his own separate identify and breaking away from the rhetoric that he's just simply the third term of George Bush. Barack Obama is looking at these same numbers, and rather than reacting to them coolly and calmly and charting his course, he's ... flailing" ("On the Record," FNC, 9/9).

After the jump, Obama continues the TV rounds.

(KATHERINE LEHR)

FRENEMIES

"O'Reilly Factor" aired part three of FNC's O'Reilly's interview with Obama.

O'Reilly, prior to running the video: "After speaking with him last week, I have a new respect for the man. I believe he is sincere in his beliefs. And his presence has definitely changed politics forever. For our conservative viewers, consider this. Without Obama's dramatic rise, there would be no Sarah Palin. There would be no new blood in American politics, but Senator Obama's associations continue to trouble some voters. And that is where we begin tonight."

O'Reilly: "I'm sitting here and I'm an American. I'm sitting there in Bismarck, North Dakota, I'm sitting there in Coral Springs, Florida. And I'm seeing Reverend Wright. I'm seeing Father Pfleger, who thinks Louie Farrakhan's a great guy. I'm seeing Bernadette Dorn and Bill Ayers, Weather Underground radicals, who don't think they bombed enough. I'm seeing moveon.org, who says General Betray-us. And I'm seeing you go to a DailyKos convention. And this week DailyKos came out and said that Sarah Palin's own Syndrome baby was birthed by her 15-year-old with no proof. ... And I'm going gee, that Barack Obama, he's got some pretty bad friends. ... Am I wrong?"

Obama: "You are wrong. Let's start from scratch. Number one, I know thousands of people. Right? And so, understandably, people will pick out folks who they think they can. ... The Wright thing we've talked about. I joined a church to worship God, not a pastor. This whole notion that he was my spiritual mentor and all this stuff, this is something that I've consistently discussed. I had not heard him make the offensive comments that ended up being looped on this show constantly. And I was offended by them. ... The relationship was ruptured. I'm not a member of the church. ... In both his case and Father Pfleger's case, they've done great work in the community. And I worked in some very poor communities. That's how I got to know these folks because I was working on in these neighborhoods."

More Obama: "Now, on this Ayers thing, you know, you've been hyping, Bill, pretty good. ... But here's the bottom line. ... This guy did something despicable 40 years ago. ... I haven't seen the guy in a year and a half. ... Here's a guy who does something despicable when I'm 8 years old. ... I come to Chicago. He's working with Mayor Richard Daley, not known to be a radical. So, he and I know each other as a consequence of work he's doing on education. That is not an endorsement of his views. That's not. ... The problem that your viewers, ... the folks you champion, the problem you're going through, the problems they're going through with trying to pay their bills, trying to keep their job, trying to move up in this world, their problem isn't Bill Ayers. It was Bill Ayers 40 years ago when he was blowing stuff up."

O'Reilly: "They want a president who they can identify with. "

Obama: "And they should be able to identify with me because my story is your story. My story is your story" (FNC, 9/9).

And the second part of Obama's interview with MSNBC's Olbermann aired on "Countdown."

Olbermann: "This pertains to Thursday, obviously, the seventh anniversary ... of 9/11. How do you think the Republicans, who were ... in the White House in 2001 when this happened. How have they managed to paint themselves as the only people who could prevent anything resembling terrorism? And what do you do about however much of that perception remains?"

Obama: "9/11, I think, unified the country. And George Bush was the president at that time. And I think the American people did what they should have done, which is to rally around the president in this moment of crisis. That opportunity was squandered by the president, who talked about going shopping instead of pulling together to get serious about energy independence and to get serious about pulling the country together to meet our long-term challenges. But one of the things that the Republicans have done is to constantly talk tough, even though they act in not very intelligent ways. ... They may not be very effective, but at least they're tough. And one of the things that I need to communicate to the American people is talking tough in Washington and deploying our military on missions that are not central to our defense, we can't afford to continue on that kind of path."

Olbermann: "I don't know if you saw what the Republicans called the 9/11 tribute video during their convention, which was played on all the cable networks. ... Should a video like that with such graphic images of that horrible day be shown in the context of a political campaign
by anybody, by any campaign, by any candidate?"

Obama: "Well, it's not something we would have done, because I think that 9/11 is beyond partisan politics. You know, that's why I'm going to be appearing with John McCain at Ground Zero on Thursday, because that was something that should be pulling us together. It's not something that should be, I think, trotted out in political moments. But obviously they made a different judgment. They are free to do so. I believe that the American people are interested in who's going to make sure that the next administration is keeping us safe in the future and not looking backwards" (MSNBC, 9/9).