Obama's 'Dog' Remark Draws Attention

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - President Barack Obama decided to speak a little off the cuff while attending a Labor Day rally Monday in Milwaukee, Wisc.

Promoting a plan for a $50 billion jobs initiative while attending the Milwaukee Laborfest, Obama said that he has had to take on "some powerful interests ’ some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time" while trying to rebuild the middle class.

"And they're not always happy with me," Obama said at the rally. "They talk about me like a dog. That's not in my prepared remarks, it's just ’ but it's true."

Yahoo! News Upshot blog noted that the line is a verbatim quote from Jimi Hendrix's song "Stone Free," though the president has not acknowledged this.

And White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that he has not talked with Obama about the statement. "I assume," Gibbs said reported The Los Angeles Times , "that if you look at some of what is said about the president and matched them up against the facts, on occasion dogs get a better representation."

Alexandra Petri, blogging for the Washington Post , suggested that people say kinder things about dogs than Republicans have said recently about Obama.

"Speak!" these people tell their dogs. "Stop talking!" they tell Obama," she wrote. "Stay!" they tell their dogs. "'We're going to unseat you in 2012!' they tell Obama."

CNN said conservative pundit Michelle Malkin stated that Obama's remark seemed "like something that would come from a politician exhausted by marathon campaigning and beaten down by the opposition" rather than the leader of the majority party.

This is not the first time the president has used a dog reference in his speeches. Two years ago when asked about getting a dog for his two girls, Obama said that he was leaning towards a mutt, like himself.

"This is a major issue," he said at a press conference, reported Politico . "We have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic. There are a number of breeds that are hypoallergenic. On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog. But obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts, like me. So whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household."