# 2012 nominees for the Ballsiest Excuse of the Year
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 5, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484 "2012-01-05T09:22:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/21 "2012-01-05T23:42:39Z")
And to answer the earlier question, to me it sounded like he said “I don’t want to make li- people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”
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### Author:  [@Stelios](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stelios)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/22 "2012-01-06T00:16:33Z")
> [@Grumman](#):
>
> And to answer the earlier question, to me it sounded like he said “I don’t want to make li- people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”
> [@Condescending Robot](#):
>
> With my credentials firmly established re: Senator Byproduct, I will say that having watched the video, he didn’t say anything close to “black people” and this is some dumb shit to attack him on given how utterly loathsome the things he actually says are.
I’m not American, so maybe it’s possible that I’m just misinterpreting his accent or something, but _my God_ it sounds _so much_ like he says “Black people”. I watched that clip again while saying the word “lives” over and over and over again in my head, just to see if it made any difference. Nope. When it came to the crucial moment, I _still_ heard him say black.
I don’t know if there’s something wrong with my ears or what, but I simply can’t understand how anyone could possibly hear anything else. Honestly, I don’t mean to be an asshole but you guys who are acting like this is somehow a ridiculous interpretation and a partisan hack job need to make a little attitude adjustment. You really do have the weight of evidence against you. I’d bet my house that if you played that clip without comment to 100 people, 90-95 of them would go “Yep. He said black.”
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/23 "2012-01-06T00:23:59Z")
> [@Stelios](#):
>
> I’m not American, so maybe it’s possible that I’m just misinterpreting his accent or something, but _my God_ it sounds _so much_ like he says “Black people”.
I don’t know of any American accent where the word “black” starts “bly,” and I am pretty sure there is no such accent. There’s definitely no “ck” sound in the video clip.
> [@](#):
>
> Honestly, I don’t mean to be an asshole but you guys who are acting like this is somehow a ridiculous interpretation and a partisan hack job need to make a little attitude adjustment.
It pains me to say it, but it is.
> [@](#):
>
> You really do have the weight of evidence against you.
What evidence? He doesn’t say “black.” He says, at most, about 40 percent of the word (“bl”) and then utters another sound that is not a part of the word “black” \*(a long i). When you combine that with the fact that “black people” makes no sense in the context of what he is saying, why _would_ you assume he was trying to say “black people?” And if he _did_ mean to say black people, why did he immediately repeat that part of the sentence without saying it? If you assume he did say “black people” there, that would indicate he said it by accident and corrected himself.
> [@](#):
>
> I’d bet my house that if you played that clip without comment to 100 people, 90-95 of them would go “Yep. He said black.”
I think if you told asked people if he said “black people,” a lot of them would hear it. That’s how suggestion works. If you just asked them what he said, I don’t think you would get that many people saying he said “black people.”
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/24 "2012-01-06T00:25:44Z")
I don’t hear Santorum talking about black people in that clip. The context also does not suggest he was saying that (i.e. being in a room full of white people and saying “you” just before the garbled word).
I am not a Santorum fan.
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> Any Republican who moves to the front of the pack will be lied about.
They should hope for lies, or at least the sort of spin like we see in this case. The facts are ever so much more damaging.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/25 "2012-01-06T00:29:43Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> They should hope for lies, or at least the sort of spin like we see in this case. The facts are ever so much more damaging.
Which is why this thread and the thread about the alleged abortion are so aggravating. As if there weren’t enough good reasons to despise Rick Santorum and to believe 25 percent of Republicans in Iowa just outed themselves as pervy, sex-obsessed morons, for some reason people want to make up other stuff. The other day Jon Stewart went off on some of the Republican candidates for attacking Ron Paul by talking about his foreign policy views and ignoring the fact that he published a newsletter chock full of paranoid racist and homophobic insanity. This is the same problem.
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### Author:  [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/26 "2012-01-06T00:30:21Z")
> [@Grumman](#):
>
> At least this time nobody’s digging up his dead children to use as ammunition. That’s a step forwards, I guess.
Who needs to dig them up? He brings them home with him.
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### Author:  [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/27 "2012-01-06T02:17:40Z")
Ok, I just listened to it, thinking that maybe it was a iffy kinda thing, maybe we’re being unfair to him…
But seriously. He says black people. WTF! It’s not even close to debatable!
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/MdfZmcuomcE/hqdefault.jpg "Racist Rick Santorum: "I don't want to make black peoples lives better"") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdfZmcuomcE)
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/28 "2012-01-06T02:24:09Z")
This isn’t as depressing as the candidacy of Rick Santorum itself, but it’s pretty depressing. Newt Gingrich has actually said some racist shit during this campaign and Ron Paul has published (and maybe written) a ton of racist shit, and you’re trying to attack Rick Santorum over this?
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### Author:  [@Tarwater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarwater)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/29 "2012-01-06T03:12:57Z")
I have a degree in Linguistics, and I’ve spent hours studying the way people talk, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s saying ‘black’ even if he is stumbling his way through the word. I’m listening to it at work, however, and one of the earbuds on my headphones is broken, so I’m only hearing through one ear. As to whether hearing it 100% clearly would change my opinion, I doubt it.
I have no doubt that he intended to say black people, too. His stumbling at the word, I feel, was the rational side of his brain going, “Oh fuck dude, do you know what you’re doing right now? You’re going too far!” I’ve been in the same position; blurting shit out before I have a chance to stop myself. It’s never been racist or anything, but I guess that’s because I’m not one.
Not that my opinion of Santorum suffers from his “Welfare = Black” problem. It’s already as low as it could possibly go. So I don’t feel like I’m searching for new reasons to hate the guy.
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### Author:  [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/30 "2012-01-06T03:42:04Z")
Another entry:
“I cannot say with certitude that that photo of bulging underpants is me or not.”
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/31 "2012-01-06T03:54:02Z")
I think [this is the cleanest version of the speech.](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/what-did-rick-santorum-say-welfare-comments-scrutinized/) Clean picture in sync with clear audio…and it sounds like “black people” to me, too. It’s not the only mistake in that speech, btw-ABC does a pretty good analysis.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/32 "2012-01-06T04:13:18Z")
> [@Tarwater](#):
>
> I have a degree in Linguistics, and I’ve spent hours studying the way people talk, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s saying ‘black’ even if he is stumbling his way through the word. I’m listening to it at work, however, and one of the earbuds on my headphones is broken, so I’m only hearing through one ear. As to whether hearing it 100% clearly would change my opinion, I doubt it.
>
> I have no doubt that he intended to say black people, too. His stumbling at the word, I feel, was the rational side of his brain going, “Oh fuck dude, do you know what you’re doing right now? You’re going too far!” I’ve been in the same position; blurting shit out before I have a chance to stop myself. It’s never been racist or anything, but I guess that’s because I’m not one.
>
> Not that my opinion of Santorum suffers from his “Welfare = Black” problem. It’s already as low as it could possibly go. So I don’t feel like I’m searching for new reasons to hate the guy.
I mean, come on, Marley. His fucking excuse is that he started to say one word but tried to change it to another. What other word do you know that he could have meant that starts with “bl”? Even if he did successfully change it, does it not make him a racist for even starting to say it?
And let’s not forget that people do not always say every sound in a word. Ending consonants are very often dropped, replaced with a glottal stop or just sharp air cut off, something that does not happen if the word actually ends in a vowel. So there is no way the guy say “bly”. He says “bla?”, and there’s no reason that ? can’t be the missing /k/ phoneme.
The one thing I will blast the OP for is not explaining why the statement in and of itself would be bad, seeing as there’s no context. He could have been talking about some black only program or something. Heck, it would be a bit weird, but not overtly racist if he had just been talking about the high poverty rate of black people in the U.S. It doesn’t become racist until you realize he equated black (sorry, “bla?”) people with those who are being unfairly signed up for welfare programs from the previous paragraph.
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### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/33 "2012-01-06T04:13:44Z")
I’ve listened to three different versions and they all sound the same to me, and not at all like “black”. Not to mention that it makes no sense given the context.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/34 "2012-01-06T04:22:13Z")
The context is terrifying, and exactly what I expected. He is playing on a blue-collar theme, and singing that old song about how all the welfare layabouts are living well on money taken from honest, hard-working Americans. Its not exactly racist, nor is it exactly class war, it takes the worst of both to make an ignorance omelet. Following the line of his speaking, it segues totally with shifting ever so slightly towards race, and in that context, no other word but “blacks” really makes any sense.
I am aware that I am as prone to confirmation bias as anyone else. But I heard it pretty clear.
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### Author:  [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/35 "2012-01-06T04:36:03Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Goddamn it, Rick Santorum is a disgusting human being. He is positively vile. Why do people on this board keep picking these fucking moronic, inaccurate excuses to attack him? [This is the second one in less than 24 hours.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=637326) He does not say “black people” there at all. It comes out closer to “bly people,” and he clearly goes back to say exactly what he meant, which was “people’s lives.” This is a fucking embarrassment, and people who make shit up in the interest of attacking him let him off the hook in two different ways: they ignore the real stuff and make it easier to ignore the real stuff by mixing the real stuff with fake stuff. What you get is a frothy mixture of dishonesty and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of idiocy.
>
> “In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”
> “Whether it’s polygamy, whether it’s adultery, whether it’s sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.”
> -Rick Santorum, April 2003
>
> Lies and distortions are unnecessary and counterproductive in discussing why this piece of garbage is unfit for any kind of elective office down to and particularly including dog catcher.
Agreed 100% in all particulars. And we both know talking sense like that won’t do any damn good–the SDMB dumbasses need blood, and they’re going to get it.
For those of you convinced he said “black people”: how do you explain the fact that he said "I don’t want **to to** make . . . "? Was he talking about tutus, as worn by ballerinas? I mean, if every sound he makes must be a word, and you know what word it is, then what does that extra “to” in there mean? A slur against the proud Tu people of southern Guaramnia?
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### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/36 "2012-01-06T04:36:31Z")
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> The context is terrifying, and exactly what I expected. He is playing on a blue-collar theme, and singing that old song about how all the welfare layabouts are living well on money taken from honest, hard-working Americans.
What are you smoking? He was talking about government being obsessed with getting people onto welfare instead of getting them jobs. He wasn’t blaming the recipients.
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### Author:  [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/37 "2012-01-06T04:39:21Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> I mean, come on, Marley. His fucking excuse is that he started to say one word but tried to change it to another. What other word do you know that he could have meant that starts with “bl”? Even if he did successfully change it, does it not make him a racist for even starting to say it?
“People’s lives.” Dumbass.
> [@](#):
>
> And let’s not forget that people do not always say every sound in a word. Ending consonants are very often dropped, replaced with a glottal stop or just sharp air cut off, something that does not happen if the word actually ends in a vowel. So there is no way the guy say “bly”. He says “bla?”, and there’s no reason that ? can’t be the missing /k/ phoneme.
So you have all this analysis worked up for why he dropped the /k/, but you can’t fathom that he could have muffed “people’s lives” into “bly”–which makes some sense given all the ps and ls and zs in there?
> [@](#):
>
> It doesn’t become racist until you realize he equated black (sorry, “bla?”) people with those who are being unfairly signed up for welfare programs from the previous paragraph.
What’s your evidence that he did that?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/38 "2012-01-06T04:39:53Z")
It would certain tie in with mislabeling The Department Of health And Human Services “The Department Of Public Welfare” when speaking of “Black People” in front of a white audience. It seems to be totally in context with the next sentence where he says he wants to give “them” the opportunity to _earn_ their money-He doesn’t say “You”(the audience he is speaking to), but “Them”(the “Bla… People” he referred to in the previous sentence.) It is absolutely clear that he is talking to one group of people about another group of people in that section of his speech.
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### Author:  [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/39 "2012-01-06T04:40:33Z")
> [@Grumman](#):
>
> What are you smoking?
Pretty sure the answer is “anything not nailed down, soaking wet, or able to run fast enough.”
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/40 "2012-01-06T04:52:21Z")
I am utterly flabbergasted at this. He is so obviously _not_ saying “black people.” First of all, do people seriously think Santorum would be _stupid_ enough to make such a blatantly racial remark, with _no context whatsoever_, at this public meeting? And not even a vaguely, round-about racist remark, but actually saying “BLACK PEOPLE”? No. There’s no way. And it’s obvious from listening to him that it was a slip of the tongue. He says “blyyyyy - people”. It’s just one of those _noises_ that people make when they’re speaking and momentarily say the wrong syllable - it means absolutely nothing, and everyone does it sometime.
This is _so silly._ There are so many legitimate reasons to complain about Santorum. This non-issue is not one of them - just a sick example of opportunistic racemongering from some newswriter who obviously thought we’re stupid enough to swallow it.
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