Paper #1

Feeling a Challenge, Obama Sharpens His Silver Tongue
By: Jeff Zeleny
In this piece I can see where Obama is “sharpening his tongue.” I agreed with you about the comments that he was making like the statements about how Obama has always been for change and now McCain is also attempting to spread that message just in another way. Yet, I did find it unnecessary for the comment about “put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig” is being used as an example to this piece of Obama sharpening his tongue. Even you stated that “Mr. Obama was employing an age-old phrase.” So my question to you is why did you feel like you should mention the controversy only around this phrase?
I do realize that gender in the election is a big deal during this election compared to many elections before, however, was it necessary for you to go into detail about the lipstick controversy compared to the other statements that you stated Obama was making. For example, change and experience. I know that Obama is getting heat for those statements from the press and McCain and both have to do with Palin and the sudden shift of topics. The sudden shift from hearing how Obama does not have the experience and change to suddenly nothing is said about it because Palin is in the same shoe as Obama. She went from hardly being known to a national figure. Yet, nothing about this was stated in your article when you mentioned these points; you felt the need to elaborate on the lip stick on a pig deal. I ended up reading this article more focused on the fact that Palin might have been called a pig rather then the actual content that was intended for me to take away.
Within the last statement you mention that he, Obama, is trying to be careful in this gender based election, and once again I do not see how this paper has really anything to do with a gender based election since it was meant to focus on his sharpened tongue or the rhetoric he is attempting to step up, and not the fact that McCain and his campaign managers took the statement as a direct stab at Palin because she is female and just because there is a mention of lipstick suddenly it has become related to women. This bothers me because if this was any other election and this statement was made it would have been over looked basically. Just like the second half of that statement, “You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it’s still going to stink after eight years.” I thought that was interesting that the second half of this statement was not targeted yet the first half was. I can continue about the way that I thought this statement was taken the wrong way and how I do not necessarily agree with how people are making it into a bigger deal then it is, but I am going to stop. This is because I know that there is a better time and place for statements regarding this topic only. Possibly another article that only regards that problem that is being faced, and not during an article that is of a totally different story.
My only complaint then about this is that reason. If you are going to elaborate on one “sharp tongued” remark then make sure to elaborate on all of them. Especially, do not elaborate on the woman factor statement if you are talking about how Obama needs to watch what he is saying. I say follow your own advice too.





Breann Hager
September 16, 2008

I just wanted to say that I did have a little bit of trouble with writing this because I did not know exactly how to structure this or how to necessarily organize my thoughts on the paper. I know I repeat a lot but if you can tell me where I can improve on that it would be awesome. Also, anything else that you can tell me to help me improve because I, honestly, need a lot of help. I did not think that writing this would be that hard for me, but II was proven wrong. Thank you for your help.