# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/61 "2012-01-06T15:12:08Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> Sure. Because getting into a pissing match with the media will hurt rather than help. It’s clear that people who want to hear the worst are not going to be convinced. He’s got no choice but to capitulate. Doesn’t mean that he said “black,” just that he can’t win a fight about it.
So now he’s lying about saying ‘black’?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/62 "2012-01-06T15:19:30Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> The hate is strong in this one.
>
> And, don’t call me a liar. Listen to the idiocy you’re spewing. “Anyone who hears otherwise is a liar”? So lying = comes to a different conclusion than **The Second Stone**.
>
> Well, I listened to it a few times. Missed the exact moment the first time because I heard nothing that sounded like “black,” other than a plosive and non-descript vowel sound of general stammering.
>
> _And_, in context, that word makes no freaking sense.
>
> Really? That word is so out of left field. We’re already talking about ‘you’ (the hard-working yet financially-strapped audience), and he’s just throwing shit about niggers in here for kicks? Because he can’t help himself? Please.
>
> If this had come out of anyone else’s mouth, no one would bat an eye at it; just tongue-tripping.
>
> I don’t hear it. And, by my definition, that makes **you** a liar, **The Second Stone**. Stop being such a lying sack of shit. Liaaar! Neener-neener-neener!!!
>
> Sure. Because getting into a pissing match with the media will hurt rather than help. It’s clear that people who want to hear the worst are not going to be convinced. He’s got no choice but to capitulate. Doesn’t mean that he said “black,” just that he can’t win a fight about it.
>
> And, FTR, I’m voting Obama in November, baring something bizarre and unexpected. I can’t stand Santorum’s politics or how he expresses his faith.
1. When referencing “black people”, he was saying “them”, _not_ “you”.
2. He tied it to the fictional “Department Of Public Welfare”-Black people, welfare, them-get the picture?
3. He copped to saying it, and even provided a reference! Why the fuck would he capitulate to the media when so many of his fans are willing to say he said otherwise? Normally, this third point would be enough to but an end to this controversy, but i think this thread left normal a long time ago.
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### Author:  [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/63 "2012-01-06T15:19:32Z")
We’ve secretly replaced Rick Santorum’s dog whistle with a regular whistle. Let’s watch.
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### Author:  [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/64 "2012-01-06T15:29:40Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> Administrator? How about lying sack of crap? Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining! You are a disgusting idiot. Whether or not what he said was racist or not in intent, the word was “black”. Whether or not “black” used in that context made sense or is scandalous is beyond the point. He said “black”. Anybody who looks and listens to that tape and hears otherwise is a liar.
>
> You, Marley23, are a fucking liar. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
>
> I wouldn’t accept you for prison trustee duties.
>
> That he said “black” is not a matter open to opinion, it is fact.
Look buddy, we all already know you are stupid as hell. There’s no need for you to continue to show it (eg, by displaying your lack of understanding of the word “liar” and the difference between a fact and an opinion).
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### Author:  [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/65 "2012-01-06T15:30:06Z")
> [@enomaj](#):
>
> We’ve secretly replaced Rick Santorum’s dog whistle with a regular whistle. Let’s watch.
ROFL! Whether he meant to say that or not, that was an awesome comment 🙂
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/66 "2012-01-06T15:44:49Z")
To add some context, I don’t think Santorum wants to make black people’s lives better. I don’t think he wants to make anyone’s lives better. He just wants to make sure everybody’s peepees and hoohahs are being used the way God wants them to be used. Because anything else is _icky_ and makes God cry and lose his erection. Why do you people hate America and want God to be unable to get it up?
> [@BigT](#):
>
> 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”?
Again, this sounds like deliberate stupidity. Sometimes people stumble over their words, and when they do, they do not always start to say the next word in sequence. Sometimes you get gibberish (and we’re already discussing a Rick Santorum speech). But if I had to guess, I’d say he stumbled over saying “people’s lives,” which starts with a p and not a b and makes the word fragment “ply.” Those happened to be the next words in the sentence.
> [@](#):
>
> Even if he did successfully change it, does it not make him a racist for even starting to say it?
I’d lean toward “no,” particularly if he did not intend to say it.
> [@](#):
>
> And let’s not forget that people do not always say every sound in a word.
Oh my God, Bela Lugosi was actually saying “Blaaaack!” in all those Dracula movies!
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> 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.
The problem is that he wasn’t speaking of black people. If he’d been discussing the black community in some way, I could understand this interpretation. He plainly was not doing that.
> [@Onomatopoeia](#):
>
> I held a poorly sampled, weakly scientific survey at work this evening.
I will refrain from snarkily asking where you work.
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> Whether or not “black” used in that context made sense or is scandalous is beyond the point.
I already knew you were a dimwit-
> [@](#):
>
> Anybody who looks and listens to that tape and hears otherwise is a liar.
And this argument is used only by people who have no argument. Moving on.
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Please see post #50. Santorum does not dispute that he said “black people”, and he even provides the context.
He does dispute it. That’s what this thread was about initially: his implausible-sounding explanation of what he said. In the CBS story, he does not dispute that he said it. As I said in another post, he makes the rookie mistake of trying to explain what he said without being sure what was being discussed. He’s asked why he said something about black people and assumes he was actually talking about black people. It’s a dumb thing to do, but you have to keep in mind that he’s an idiot.
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> However, to any sentence beginning “do people seriously think Santorum would be stupid enough to…” the answer is likely to be yes.
Agreed. I’m not arguing that this is too dumb for Santorum. I’m saying that the comment does not make sense with “black people” in there. And when I say it doesn’t make sense, I don’t mean it in the way that “sex for pleasure is evil” doesn’t make sense, but in the way that “purple monkey dishwasher” doesn’t make sense.
“Black people” makes even less sense in the context of the longer clip **Czarcasm** posted. I am annoyed at having to explain this and I may be losing IQ points from having listened to that idiotic rambling. The questioner asks Santorum about foreign governments having too much influence on the U.S. and his example is _there is a polar bear on Coke cans_. This is an adult voter and I doubt he should even be allowed to cross the street by himself. Then Santorum takes that question and uses it to blather (or did I say blacker?!) about a bunch of things that don’t have much to do with foreign influence, including the loss of manufacturing jobs and overexpansion of federal aid programs. I guess the gist is that those programs are “European” and not American. Total asshole.
I think people here are hearing nothing but the word “welfare” and assuming he’s going on about welfare queens, which would explain why he said he doesn’t want to help black people. The thing is, he’s not talking about that, and it’s even clearer if you can listen to the longer clip without stabbing yourself in the eardrum. He says manufacturing jobs are going away and the Iowa government is going to be penalized if it doesn’t get enough people on Medicaid. He says “they” - meaning the government - wants to get “you” (meaning his lilly-white audience and people like them) onto federal programs. That’s the big problem with the “black people” theory right there: he says the government wants to get these voters onto the rolls of programs like Medicaid and Social Security, and that’s a bad thing. He’s talking to white voters when he says this. So how does that fit with saying he doesn’t want to give money to black people? He’s saying he wants to create jobs and doesn’t want to give money to anyone. It’s a pretty stupid comment on its own, but instead of pointing out that he’s giving lipservice to blue collar manufacturers (for whom he would do fuck-all if elected) and saying Social Security and Medicaid and other programs are _bad_, you’re listening to him trip over his tongue and saying it means he is a racist.
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### Author:  [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/67 "2012-01-06T15:49:51Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> 1. He copped to saying it, and even provided a reference! Why the fuck would he capitulate to the media when so many of his fans are willing to say he said otherwise? Normally, this third point would be enough to but an end to this controversy, but i think this thread left normal a long time ago.
What he said sounds more like he didn’t remember saying it, but since there was a quote he assumed he did.
> [@](#):
>
> “I’ve seen that quote, I haven’t seen the context in which that was made,” Santorum told Pelley, of the Sunday remarks. “Yesterday I talked for example about a movie called, um, what was it? ‘Waiting for Superman,’ which was about black children and so I don’t know whether it was in response and I was talking about that.”
I love seeing Republicans get called on their dog whistle racism but I’ve listened to the quote over and over and I don’t hear ‘black.’ I think he just stumbled over his words.
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### Author:  [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/68 "2012-01-06T16:03:24Z")
While he displays ignorance about the economy, misrepresents Obama’s plans and provides no logical link between cutting taxes and more jobs, he definitely does NOT say “black” or anything close. Maybe he was starting to say it and then backed off, but he doesn’t complete enough of the word for anyone to confidently claim that he meant to say black. If anything, it sounded more like “blind people.” Or maybe “Bligh people”, displaying some sympathy for the captain’s loyalists on the Bounty.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/69 "2012-01-06T16:04:41Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#):
>
> If anything, it sounded more like “blind people.” Or maybe “Bligh people”, displaying some sympathy for the captain’s loyalists on the Bounty.
I was saving that joke, so now I need a replacement. Um, Santorum doesn’t want to give money to… uh… Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom?
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/70 "2012-01-06T16:52:18Z")
I hear “bly people”, which could be black people with a southern accent and a compression of the final k into the p of people, or could be a stumbling of the people and lives (p and b are both similar letters as far as the lips go.)
His explanation of ‘Waiting for Superman’ sounds like he doesn’t remember making the statement at all but is trying to guess what he might have been thinking at the time.
All in all I think its about 50/50 chance either way as to whether he said black or not.
Given that this no matter what he said doesn’t change my opinion that he is a complete Santorum, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this account.
If the score is 84-3 there is no need to contest the field goal.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/71 "2012-01-06T17:14:02Z")
The question becomes, then, how will this affect his chances with black voters? Not very much, I would imagine.
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### Author:  [@3\_20\_59\_or\_bust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3_20_59_or_bust)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/72 "2012-01-06T18:00:24Z")
Does the fact that [Newt said the exact same thing](http://news.yahoo.com/gingrich-black-people-paychecks-not-food-aid-234405279.html) change anyone’s mind about what Santorum _might_ have said?
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/73 "2012-01-06T18:04:51Z")
Gingrich didn’t say the exact same thing. He kind of said the opposite, in fact, when he said he’d reform Social Security to better serve African-American men.
Wonder if he stole that idea from Chris Rock.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/74 "2012-01-06T18:06:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> I haven’t listened to the clip (and don’t give a shit about anything Rick Santorum says anyway). I must say, therefore, that I find it awfully interesting that people in this thread who think he said black, and people who don’t, break down almost perfectly along party (or at least ideological) lines.
>
> It’s just **Marley** and **Stoid** fucking things up.
I hope you don’t think I’m a Republican. I’m not. If anything, the last couple of years have galvanized me against that party. I’ll gladly vote for Obama against anyone the GOP runs.
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### Author:  [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/75 "2012-01-06T18:07:08Z")
Well I guess he just doesn’t care about the Buuuu vote.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/76 "2012-01-06T18:09:00Z")
Rick Santorum doesn’t care about bly people!
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/77 "2012-01-06T18:27:18Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> I haven’t listened to the clip (and don’t give a shit about anything Rick Santorum says anyway). I must say, therefore, that I find it awfully interesting that people in this thread who think he said black, and people who don’t, break down almost perfectly along party (or at least ideological) lines.
>
> It’s just **Marley** and **Stoid** fucking things up.
I’m not just a liberal; i consider myself a leftist and i don’t think he said “black.”
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> The question becomes, then, how will this affect his chances with black voters? Not very much, I would imagine.
I think, in some ways, this gets to the heart of the matter, and not just regarding black voters.
Whether he did or did not say black does not really change my opinion of him either way. Finding out that he _did_ say black would not make me dislike him any more, and finding out that he did _not_ say black would not make me dislike him any less.
As for the people who support Santorum, i doubt any of them would abandon him for saying that all black people are on welfare. As i said earlier, stereotypes of the black welfare recipient have been a staple of conservative politics for decades, and i’m sure plenty of Santorum’s supporters buy into the rhetoric.
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### Author:  [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/78 "2012-01-06T18:28:11Z")
I’ve listened to this, repeatedly, on my studio audio equipment - over speakers and headphones.
I still hear “blyte people.”
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/79 "2012-01-06T18:30:05Z")
That being the case, it gets be more a matter of accidentally saying what he was only supposed to insinuate.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2012-nominees-for-the-ballsiest-excuse-of-the-year/608484/80 "2012-01-06T18:31:06Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#):
>
> …I still hear “blyte people.”
Like the kid in that movie? “I see blyte people.”
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