OMG.  It's SweetieGATE.

Enough, PLEASE.

Enough, please.

"Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I'm calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn't get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren't the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.

Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next."

Move over finger-gate, it's SWEETIE-GATE!!!!1

OMGNOOOOOEZ

INSERT MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE HERE

Wonder what the reaction would be if Clinton said that to an African American reporter.

As I posted on the other diary.  I VERY bad habit, showing his condescending, demeaning and sexism.

He called Senator Boxer CUTIE.  Uh yes, a terrible habit he has.

A fellow, SENIORED Senator, at a business function, he calls her a Cutie?

How would it go over if she attended one of his business functions and she said, isn't he a "Stud"?  Eyebrows would be raised for a good reason.  But we don't have to try to bury our own thoughts from leaking out.  He does.

you go through training and learn this kind of thing is unacceptable. You do not touch another person and if you do, you do not condescend to her.

I know some of you are desperate, but this just makes you look silly. So happens, I've been called "sweetie". Many times.

Obama apologized in a voicemail he left on Agar's cell phone at 3:16 p.m:

"Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I'm calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn't get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren't the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.

"Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0 508/Obama_apologizes_Sweetie_a_bad_habit .html

I loveeeeee this so much.

Keep it UP!!!!!!!!

Grab grab grab on everything and anything you can!

Grab for it!

he should and did apologize.

I do not think though that he is sexist. I think he respects women, and everyone, as equals. The reporter was getting on his nerves (on purpose it appears), tossing questions to him when he was walking around and not taking questions, and he took a jab at her. Like he said in his apology, they had set up times for reporters to ask questions. This walk around wasn't supposed to be a time to shoot questions.

The reporter was looking to sir up trouble and Obama should not have taken the bait.

I think he learned from this experience. I also think he will be a great president.

I think Obama's plan to swing the support of women voters toward him is to expose McCain's refusal to back pay discrimination bans and extreme right-wing position on abortion and stem-cell research.

That would have really been offensive.

... who thinks it was no big deal. Put your money where your mouth is.

If you are a man, here's a challenge:

Tomorrow, while at work, call a coworker "sweetie" in a professional setting, ideally.

Bonus points available

- if you do so while trying to ignore her or refuse a request from her (as Obama was doing).

• if you don't know her very well or at all (as was the case for Obama).
  
• if the woman is your boss.

I'm curious as to how it will be received.

Sorry, but the impending "Sweety-gate" must be called out for what it is before it gets too big:

http://press.princeton.edu/video/frankfu rt/Q5lan.mov

anything.

I sometimes call co-workers "Dude" "Ma'am" and even a "thanks Darlin" or "thank you hun"

In the south (where my family is from) women call everyone "Sugar" and they can say it nicely, or venomously enough to draw blood.

So I say...whatever...

Look, I grew up in an era when bosses (all male) would routinely call their help sweetie, honey and all of the other crappy condescending phrases that had no place in an office.  So yeah, it is bad, stinks, and he needs to watch it, not say it, not think it.

Surrender Dorothy!!

In my state, people call women "dear" all the time in many, many situations.  I find it sort of sweet but it did feel a bit strange when I first moved here.

All the (good) waitresses call you "hon", sweetie.

From my perspective (as a 29 year old guy), my older female secretary at my law firm calls me "sweetie" or variations thereof more often than not, probably because I'm only 5 or so years older than her kids.

I like it, what can I say, but I def wouldn't use it myself with any female co-workers, whether other lawyers or staff.  So I'm glad he apologized.

Us men have a ways to go, but we're trying, and I think it's unfair to get over-outraged by Obama in this case.

Seriously, who hasn't been called sweetie before?  It's a casual term of endearment, not sexism.  Get over it.

...and flipping her the bird while he said it?

Another manufactured outrage.  This is getting really stupid.

every time someone called me sweetie, sweetheart, honey, stud-muffin, studley, dreamboat, mc dreamy, hot cake, suger buns, sailor, cowboy, the guy in the next cell, or any other endearing term, i would be reduced to being just another bitter (but gorgeous) individual.