Reply #45: Well, you could get a press card and ask him

[anigbrowl]

or write a letter or call into a show and demand to know what he meant until the news organization felt it had enough public interest to ask him about it. But frankly, I think people who interpret such remarks so literally won't be satisfied even if he points out that he's just referencing a figure of speech. I'd far rather a reporter point it out as a figure of speech, then ask McCain how he proposes to (or not) to elevate the quality of debate in the media and rescue it from this lowest-common-denominator standard which is most obvious on Fox news and talk radio.

Imagine for a moment that Obama had said this offhandedly, and the usual suspects on the right were going ballistic claiming that he was implicitly endorsing wife-beating. It would be bullshit, no? And while Obama hasn't said this exact phrase, he's not averse to a figure of speech from time to time and people have taken him to task using over-literal interpretations. I think we should eschew such trivial distractions.