There seems to be much blogosphereic speculation about what some think might be a video showing Barack Obama giving Hillary Clinton the one-finger salute:
Right now, we’ll just leave this video for Ticket readers to view and judge for themselves. It’s Sen. Barack Obama, according to the caption on YouTube posted just minutes ago, speaking to a friendly crowd in Raleigh, N.C., today.
He’s talking critically about his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, and the kind of distasteful gotcha politics that occur in Washington. And he says, “That’s all right. Sen. Clinton looked in her element.”
Watch the video right then. The presidential candidate raises his right hand to seemingly scratch his cheek.
He doesn’t use his whole hand though. Just one finger. Briefly. A couple of strokes.
He pauses. He smiles slyly as the crowd begins to mumble and then he tries, somewhat distracted, to continue his remarks, smiling as the buzz spreads through the crowd.
He’ll no doubt deny it later, but that mischievous smile seems to confirm plenty. And the crowd sure sees something.
Judge for yourself.
Here’s the video:
And then the still image:
Now there are two reactions one can have to this.
One is to be shocked that an American politician running for President would use a vulgar gesture so obviously.
The other is to say — Hey Barack, we’ve been doing that to Hillary since 1993, welcome to the club !
April 18th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Here’s a crazy theory. He’s scratching his cheek with his LONGEST finger. It’s such a complex and difficult motion, I know it’s hard to swallow. Notice he has two fingers raised? Notice only the longest one touches the cheek? GEE WIZ!
Also, the crowd reaction and sly smile were obviously in reaction to his COMMENT about Hillary. You think people sitting way back in the audience could tell how many fingers were touching his cheek? You think a national candidate would actually give a one fingered salute in public while being recorded?
Obama is right. Let’s talk about REAL issues, and ignore ‘news’ outlets that make up ‘issues’ like this to discuss as opposed to holding substantive debates. Let’s help get this country moving in a better direction.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Harry,
Perhaps the media wouldn’t focus on something like this if it weren’t for the fact that these candidates aren’t saying anything now that they haven’t said 1,000 times since this campaign started a year ago.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
HEH!!! That’s great!
…and can anyone seriously blame him?
April 18th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I think this is a real stretch, but if this gets any more press, I think we need to point out that the precedent has already been set by Georgie…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVynnbx1Xsc
May 29th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Well it could be accidental except you are given TWO SEPARATE events above where he did the same carefully choreographed act.
That is not accidental..
And we all really have to think…..why would he do this, TWICE, AT TWO EVENTS AND WHEN HE KNEW IT WAS RECORDED?