2012 nominees for the Ballsiest Excuse of the Year

The BBQ Pit
141

I don’t think you’re a liar. I just think that in order to hold both Santorum’s giant balls in your mouth you have to go Full Palin—you have to apply an unnaturally large amount of credulity, make some unseemly contortions, and toss Occum’s razor out the window.

Saying “black people” fits within the overall context of the point he was making. I don’t think Santorum is a racist (barring other evidence to the contrary), but I think he’s a reflection of the racism endemic to a broader society. Whether intentionally put into the public consciousness or not, there is a strong link between black people and welfare—it’s the source of much of the kerfuffle in the first place.

I’ll even grant that there is no hard ‘k’ sound. Nevertheless, the overall speech pattern doesn’t evoke stumbling for a word. The pause/stutter is at the beginning of the sentence, not where he’s pausing to ‘um’ choose the best phrasing. There is no pause at all as his speech flows across “help *blah *people.”

Futher, I’ve heard enough Santorum to find the contention that it was his way of stumbling for the right word unnecessarily far-fetched. Are there sound or video clips out there that show him saying anything similar? Somehting like “I think blahh that marriage should be between a man and a woman,” or “I’m sure that blahh Google would take the page down if it blahh was about Biden”?

Again, I think the overall point he was trying to make is a regular conservative viewpoint and debateable in GD but nothing pittable. I don’t think this was an intentional or unintentional dogwhistle; I don’t think it demonstrates his personal overt racism. I don’t think This One Statement is going to keep him out of the Whitehouse.

I do think he has ginormous balls for saying ““I didn’t say that. What I started to say was ‘bl,’ and then, ‘bllllllurgh.”

As time goes on, you are free to nominate other candidates for a Naddie. Given the nature of the award, there will be controversy and discussion as others go Full Palin and accept the tremendous balls. See, for example, past winners. There were people who honestly and legitimately believed that some people just have a ‘wide stance’. Cruising bathrooms for sex isn’t worth of a Naddy in itself; it’s the size of the balls needed to come up with the particular excuse.

142

I’m not accepting Santorum’s explanation. I’m telling you what I hear, because based on initial reading of your OP, I didn’t believe him. I’m also pointing out that the alternative theory doesn’t make any fucking sense whatsoever, and it’s a little aggravating that this is no obstacle at all for a lot of people. The context is pretty clear in the 40-second clip, but if you can stomach the longer video clip - which is difficult, but it’s not much stupider than a lot of what’s been posted in this thread - then you might see that. The “black people” theory is essentially a Pavlov’s dog response: he says welfare and then makes a noise that starts with “bl,” and since he said welfare first, obviously he said “black” and was making reference to black people as lazy welfare recipients even though after he mentioned the welfare department he discussed Medicaid, which has nothing to do with welfare.

And I think you shouldn’t invoke Occam’s razor if you can’t spell it. :wink:

143

OK. I hate him based on what people have said about him, but I’ve never heard of him before a few days ago (I’m from the UK), so hopefully I’m reasonably unbiased.

What <i>I</i> hear is this:

  • I hear a “bl”. (It sounds to me more like a “b” than a “p” but they do sound quite alike when spoken, so it could be “pl”.)
  • I hear a vowel sound, probably an “a” as in “black”
  • I hear him swallowing the end of the word. That is, what he said didn’t sound like a complete word, it sounded like he said 3/4 of a word and then cut himself off
  • He didn’t pause after that as if he’d lost his place, he just continued with the next word. I don’t know which good public speakers are trained to do if they make a mistake.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t finish saying black, but also, I agree that’s what it sounds like he said.

This sounds consistent with either the theory “he started to say black, then cut himself off” or “he muddled his word, conflating ‘better’ and 'lives somehow, but then continues smoothly”. So, um, I don’t know.

I looked on Language Log http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3684 who are normally pretty authoritative on this sort of thing. The linguist who wrote the post says he does hear an “ey”. But they don’t decide anything conclusive.

I decided I don’t care. He’s obviously terrible, I don’t care whether he shot his foot off in this way, or not.

144

No, I meant that. Occum’s razor is used on Fridays. Er, sure.

Look, we need people to go Full Palin or else things will be much duller.

Doesn’t fit the context? That’s a Full Palin right there. His broader point is all about the government’s role in supporting/helping people. That the Department of Public Welfare is going to get fined if they don’t sign more people up for Medicare—that the left’s agenda is to get more and more people (of you) dependant upon them (the government) so they can get your vote. A very standard right wing position, as is the next sentence(s):

V1: I don’t wan to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.

V2: I don’t wan to make people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.

The only difference between the two is that in one he’s adding colour (sorry, couldn’t resist) to the concept of “people.” It came out because there has been and is an intentional (not by Santorum) effort to link race with receiving welfare benefits. See, for example, welfare queen. Focusing on the mixture of ‘you’, ‘them’, and ‘people’ might work in analysing a carefully written piece, but this was much looser than that—it was a situation where unintentional and background associations came out.

Again, I’m not saying he tried to dog whistle or slip one by the press. I’m not saying he’s a closet Klan member. Nothing close. I’m just saying he verbalized a sentiment that’s lurked in society for a long time.

To use some random examples of why it fit the context:
He could have been talking about highway safety and the number of Asian drivers who got in accidents. There is a much lower association there and ‘Asian’ would be superfluous, but not out of context.
He could have been talking about whether insurance should cover STDs and the problems there are with promiscuous gay people catching them much more often than those in a monogamous relationship. The sentence works without ‘gay’, yet it fits in with the context.

What is out of context is a verbal tic that sounds like ‘black’, fits in where ‘black’ would go in the sentence, contains no break in the cadence at that point, has no other offered substitute word he could have been looking for, and is out of character with his speech patterns in general. YouTube is chock-a-block with Santorum speaking off the cuff with mixed platform messages intertwined. If this is a speech pattern of his, it shouldn’t take but a few minutes to find several examples where he makes similar verbal ticks. If interested, I can link to several that I listened to to check this assumption (or pull a random selection on your own if you think I’d selectively choose them).

145

I agree with all of this. And nowhere does he mention race, or any proxy for race. The part that does not make sense is the idea that, after making specific inclusive references to people who are in the audience, he suddenly says something about black people, who haven’t been the target of anything he’s said so far and aren’t in the audience.

This is stupid. It sounds like you’re suggesting that somewhere in the middle, Santorum either forgot who he was talking to or what he was talking about. Or that we can focus lots of attention on [BL] and tease out his intent from that, but we can’t pay that much attention to the stuff he said on purpose because it was spontaneous. And it really wasn’t spontaneous.

I think I could buy this if he’d focused on welfare, but he wasn’t talking about welfare. He misnamed the department of health and human services. If he’d botched its name a different way, it sounds like he’d have gotten off scot-free.

146

The crux of it is that he wasn’t making a coherent, well-thought out argument or statement. He was mixing extemporaneous speaking with campaign talking points. Unlike Gingrich, one of those talking points doesn’t explicitly link race and public benefits. The talking point doesn’t mention race, that’s what makes it a cock-up. No one is saying he meant to say “black people.” It’s that it was a Freudian slip (using the term in the vernacular sense).

I agree with you that if one of us were helping him edit a speech we’d call attention to “black” (assume for the moment that it was in there) and tell him that it’s incongruous to the overall point and unnecessary. Put racial overtones aside for the moment, consider editing a speech where he said “tall people,” and the incongruity stands out much more starkly.

That’s the crux of things. Substitute any modifier that makes grammatical sense (e.g. ‘tall’, ‘fat’, ‘left-handed’, ‘pet-owning’, ‘acrobatic’, etc.) and the usage becomes bizarre almost to the point of incomprehensibility:

*I don’t want to make aquatic people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money. *

The reaction would be [doubletake]what?![/dt] No doubt that that doesn’t belong, and if it came out as I don’t want to make aaahka people’s lives better by… but some conspiracy minded people tried to bend it to ‘aquatic’, then the vast out-of-contextness of it is a strong point.

But given the cultural background and connection between government assistance and race, the usage and context fits perfectly. It’s the tacit racism of society (again, not necessarily Santorum himself) that makes/has made this connection. It’s why if he’s talking about doctors he’s more likely to use ‘he’ and if he’s talking about nurses he’d more likely use ‘she’.

Find a similar verbal tic in his town hall-like interactions. Find a substitute word that closely matches the utterance but is even more in line and context with the overall point.

ETA: I don’t know if this is necessary, but to ward off a sidetrack: I’m not saying that society is the Evil Racist and using this example to indict current culture or make any large point. I’m solely using the premise that in America there is a tendency to mentally link race and receipt of benefits.

147

“Blue Collar”? Which he’s used multiple times already in this interview?

148

Yes. Each without the slightest problem.

149

I don’t need to know or speculate on motivation is someone says the word “black” and another person asserts that they have listened and didn’t hear “black”. It’s a lie. Some things are actually black and white. Not motivations, but Santorum uttering “black” is a fact, not a matter of opinion.

150

That’s the problem: if you were able to follow logic, you would be able to ask “Why would these people lie?” And if you could ask that question, you might realize the answer is “There’s no fucking reason.” Which might indicate to you that it isn’t a lie.

You saying “it’s a fact” does not make it a fact. That would be true even if you weren’t a dumbass.

If you read through this thread, you will see that’s not true. That’s not what you’re saying, but other people have said it.

I mentioned this earlier: the problem with this is that it relies on tautologies. Santorum is a Republican, therefore he’s a racist, therefore the thing he said was something racist.

It’s not a verbal tic. It’s a guy tripping over his tongue while he talks.

151

Did you listen to the audio excerpt?

If you listen to that, and assert that that is clearly the word “black” and could be no other thing, then you’re an idiot.

I agree with you politically (I’m assuming), and I can say that you are everything that is wrong with political discourse in America today. You are so invested in a) Santorum being evil, b) being morally superior to those who disagree with you, and c) taking an extreme, non-compromising opinion, that nothing you have said in this thread has been worth listening to. You are the Anne Coulter of this thread.

152

That’s what I heard too (I only listened to the clipped version Eonwe posted). Standing alone, it doesn’t sound like he said black. On the other hand, it doesn’t sound like he said anything else either and in context I would have assumed he’d said black.

153

I don’t hear anything when that opens in VLC.

154

I could only get it to work in IE 'cause it’s the only browser I have with Quicktime. No idea why I needed Quicktime to play a .wav file.

155

Buddy, you really need to go look up the definition of “lie” and “fact.” You are so stupid it’s fucking ridiculous.

156

It has nothing to do with what I think of Santorum’s politics. I wouldn’t vote for him, and I think he is a weirdo going no-where. It has everything to do with the fact that the tape reveals him saying the word “black” and people contorting all over themselves to invent a fiction that it did not happen, when it quite provably did. Only an utterly worthless reporter of events would fail to correctly report this matter: He said the word “black”. Were this not controversial, were this not about race, had none of us heard of the speaker before, I wouldn’t trust a person who did not report affirmatively that the speaker said “black”. Were this a manufactured dispute about cars, or black cars, it would be the same. I wouldn’t have any use for someone who wanted to spend time discussing whether it was “blave cars”, “bla cars”, “cars” or “blue cars”. Based on the evidence of the tape, people who fixate on denying that he said black and the rationalizations behind it are intellectually dishonest reporters. Color blindness isn’t dishonest, but selective hearing when the tape can be replayed is just lying bullshit.

These kinds of idiots would argue with at straight face that he said “peep hole”, not “people” if they got it into their heads that was what was being discussed. ‘Of course he didn’t say “black peep hole”, that makes no sense in the context of his remarks.’ At the end of The Beatles’ Baby You’re A Rich Man Lennon sings the anti-Semitic remark: “Baby You’re a Rich Fag Jew”. This is even clearer. People might want to deny that Lennon was an anti-Semite and/or a homophobe, but the remark exists.

157

You are insane.

158

You are as dumb as a bag of hammers.

159

You are unreasonably certain of your perceptions. Perceptions can be fooled by a lot of things. What you hear can depend on what you expect to hear. Sometimes even your eyes can influence what you hear. Here’s an interesting example of that. Link.

Somebody was nice enough to go through the trouble of isolating the word in question. Play it a few times and listen. There is no -ck ending to that word. I played it for my roommate, who has no idea where it’s from or why I was asking him what it meant, and he thought the word was ‘what.’

What Santorum meant to say, I don’t fucking know. Maybe he tripped on his tongue. Maybe he was going to say black and then caught himself. I don’t know and I don’t care, but I’m pretty confident that he didn’t actually say black, and that’s what this discussion is about. Portraying people who hear it differently from you as liars or as people with an agenda makes you look like a loony fucking idiot.

160

All else aside, there are a few great links in the thread. I also lost time to languagelog link.