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Okay - can we just get this out of the way? Watch for yourself:
Now, look - I chastise my father whenever he calls me anything
remotely close to sweetie, and he's used a whole bunch of those terms
(let me be brutally honest since my mother reads this blog but my
father doesn't: I hate it when my father uses alleged terms of
endearment like "doll" "babe" or "baby" - but I don't like it when
anyone calls me those things either - never have).
And after watching the clip, I believe Barack Obama when he says it's a bad habit, as here in the Detroit Free Press:
Sen. Barack Obama, who is edging toward the Democratic
presidential nomination, offhandedly called a Detroit television
reporter "sweetie" during a tour Wednesday of Chrysler's Sterling
Stamping Plant in Sterling Heights after she hurled a question at him:
"Senator, what are you going to do to help American autoworkers?" The
incident got picked up by the national news media, and the video, which
shows Obama saying, "Hold on one second, sweetie, we'll do a press
avail," to WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) reporter Peggy Agar, is playing on
YouTube.com.Several hours later, Obama left a message on Agar's cell phone, apologizing.
"It's a bad habit of mine," he said in the voice mail, which is on
the TV station's Web site. "I mean no disrespect, so I am duly
chastened on that front."Agar said in a televised report that she was more upset that Obama didn't answer her question.
But you know what? That not answering the question, that's exactly
right. Enough readers have seen how I get when I don't get my questions
answered. And the "sweetie" spin is a very, very common way of trying to
say, in what too many people find to be an acceptable tactic, "now calm
down there - I'll get to you when I'm ready - you little woman you"
kind of thing.
It is a bad habit, and a lot of people do use it, men and women - I use it with my kids to put them off or cool their jets.
So you better believe Obama had an intention, even if unconscious,
that when he is soothing with sweetie, the tough question can be
finessed away. Calm down, now - I'll get to you when I'm ready, don't
you worry now.
But he never did get to the question.
So why doesn't this rise to the level of a macaca moment?
Because a lot of politicians use similar techniques with the media, and
private citizens use it too. It's too common a bad habit to make it a
macaca moment, which was really quite outrageous and mean-spirited.
However, the good senator would be very wise to work on undoing that
bad habit because at its base? It was an avoidance tool that got turned
at a female reporter. I understand it in context, but a lot of people,
particularly men and women of voting age - may not.
Read more reactions at this The Moderate Voice post and my two cross-posts here and here. The comments are very interesting.
What was your reaction? Please offer up other views if you've seen them.