It’s candidate filing week in Washington state, and an eagle-eyed colleague emailed me a WTF over the filing of state Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-37), which surprisingly lists “States No Party Preference.” WTF indeed.
So I emailed Pettigrew to ask him if this was a mistake or a statement, and he quickly responded:
Im in NY/Boston for the week. I filed on my iphone (which has a small screen) and I must have missed the pref. line…I am, have always been will ALWAYS be a Democrat.
Thanks
EPSent from my iPhone
While I in no way doubt Pettigrew — he always has been a BIG Democrat in every sense of the word — this incident does suggest an exciting new PR strategy for crisis-challenged politicians, executives and other public figures, a technique I dub the “Sent from my iPhone Effect.”
For example, BP CEO Tony Hayward could have quickly shifted the blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster with a simple, believable, typo strewn email:
Waz using iRig app to trigger blowout preventr when lost 3g coverage. Damn ATT!
THSent from my iPhone
Or imagine former President George W. Bush’s ready-made excuse for failing to heed the August 6, 2001 daily security briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in US”:
In crawford cutting brush. Couldnt reed on iphones small screen.
WSent from my iPhone
The possibilities are endless.
HA READER CHALLENGE:
In the comment thread, imagine your “Sent from my iPhone” responses to some of history’s greatest scandals and disasters.
Funny Goldy–
Oba-Mao is running around with his chest poked out screaming about finding out who’s ass to kick….perhaps Oba-Mao could blame his inept response to the oil spill on his i-phone!
Oba-Mao should have been a leader in containing the oil…instead he kept “studying” ideas…on his i-phone no doubt, while the oil was accumulating & spreading.
Oba-Mao needs the i-phone excuse more than any President in History!
Goldy, Can you please ban Mr. Cynical already?
He is NEVER on topic and he is completely boring.
I’m all for debate but he is just annoying.
From the skipper of the Exxon Valdez;
Dmmt! When I said “TNGR on RCKS”, I meant I wanted a “Tangerie on the Rocks”, not “Tanker on the Rocks”!
From the desk of R.M. Nixon, 1972:
When I told Liddy “BK @ Watergate 6/17” I meant “Breakfast at the Watergate, prices $6.00 to $17.00”. I was just trying to give him my restaurant recommendation, not burglary instructions!
“sorry, iphone autocorrect had trouble, had to ask potus what *is* meant.
-newty
-Sent From my iPhone”
Yes, I know it’s not in the “excuse” category.
Fuck the Chinese workers who work at a factory that makes parts for Goldy’s iPhone who are committing suicide in droves.
Sent from Goldy’s iPhone.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/0.....apple.html
Too funny. I <3 it.
Pettigrew is obviously too fucking stupid to be an elected official…oh wait, what party is he in?
oh.
Hmmm, my Maps App just shows the outskirts of Moscow. I guess that’s all there is of the USSR. If we can get that far, we’ve got the Russkie’s beaten!
A. Hitler, June 1941.
Re 2
Yeah. But he’s right here.
I don’t honestly care whether BP, Haliburton and TransOcean have ultimate responsibility for this spill, or rather I do, and they should.
But on day one of the spill a leader would have had BP and other industry players on the phone or at the White House. He would have had NOAA and the Navy and the appropraite Cabinet Secretaries in a meeting about what his options were. He would have been determining worst case scenarios. He could have set up an ad hoc panel of industry leaders from a variety of specialties and corporations to advise him on what might happen and what his options were. He would have used the vast resources available to the president regardless of blame or fault to stop the spill, or determine that it couldn’t be stopped.
What he wouldn’t have done is stand by and watch the situation from a discreet distance.
But Obama is an attorney, not a leader. Or rather, he was an attorney for a few months before bailing on that to become a community activist and professor of law. (‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t teach’ is marvelously appropriate to him.) He is a man so far out of his depth in all aspects of his job (except looking calm on camera because he doesn’t understand how bad a situation really is) that it’s comical. Well, it would be if he weren’t the leader of the free world.
Obama was more interested in making sure a clear legal trail of fault led to BP than in the environmental problems, the financial impacts or anything else. (Yes, RHP, I understand that once the government gets involved in any way it muddies those waters.) And this isn’t a big government liberal/ small government conservative issue. It is a national welfare issue. This is why we have a government. Not to feed those too lazy to work or plan, or to provide medical care for those similarly afflicted. Not to tell me whether to wear a seatbelt or whether I can talk on my cell phone in my car. No, the purpose of government as imagined by the founders was to respond to exactly this kind of national emergency (and to fulfill the other very limited functions laid down in our Constitution.) A leader would have understood that. Too bad we don’t have one in the White House.
@1 “he is completely boring”
No shit. He hasn’t displayed an ounce of wit in 10,000 posts.
@14 Yawn! zzzZZZZZzzzzzz
“What a leader would do” is organize a coordinated and effective response, which is exactly what happened (as opposed to sending Mike Brown down to NOLA for dinner and a hurricane during Katrina). The fact that the government reponse was quick and efficient, but low-key, just mirrors the competent-but-not-horn-tooting nature of this administration.
DHS has played the lead role in federal response efforts since the day of the first oil rig expolosion and fire–deploying the U.S. Coast Guard to search and rescue the 126 people aboard the rig and quickly leading efforts to establish a command center on the Gulf Coast to address the potential environmental impact of the event and to coordinate with all state and local governments. Since Day 1, Secretary Napolitano has led the National Response Team, an organization of 16 federal departments and agencies responsible for coordinating emergency preparedness and response to oil and hazardous substance pollution events.
Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry was named the Federal On-Scene Coordinator to lead a Regional Response Team which was stood up that included DHS, DOC/NOAA, DOI and the EPA, as well as state and local representatives. As the event escalated, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen was announced as the National Incident Commander for the administration’s continued, coordinated response—providing additional coordinated oversight in leveraging every available resource to respond to the BP oil spill and minimize the associated environmental risks. This was all pursuant to the National Contingency Plan, which was put into place by this administration because the Bush adminstration couldn’t be bothered to create one. I think Mike Brown was supposed to, and he did his usual great job.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Small Business Administration, Department of Defense (DoD), Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior’s National Park Service, and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health are all playing their parts in the federal government response.
See the timeline of federal actions in response to this disaster, about which, I’d like to point out, BP has been lying from the start.
This could have been funny, Goldy, if you didn’t turn stupid at the end by using it to merely attack people you dislike.
You could have still attacked Republicans, but used it in a more creative way; that is, actually being pertinent to the topic, instead of stupid. No one believes, for example, that Bush “ignored warnings.” That’s been thoroughly debunked by the facts. And Hayward had nothing to do directly with the disaster, as everyone following it knows.
You started off so promisingly, but like usual, your blind partisanship prevents you from being actually interesting.
pudge @17,
And yet, you read me. Huh.